What a whirlwind. The last 2 days have been such a culture shock and rush of adrenaline, I'm still reeling. I woke up Monday morning and went to the hotel lobby for the Werner morning meeting. There were about a dozen drivers sitting around, wiping the last of their crappy night's sleep from they're eyes. After we all sat around for 30 mins, the lobby clerk gets a call from the terminal with instructions for us to sign in and not wait around any longer. Glad they waited 30 minutes to figure out someone wasn't gonna make it to the hotel......Oh well. After that, I went back upstairs and called my Student Driver Manager (SDM) to find out if there was some sort of timeline for getting a trainer. I was rather displeased to find out that they still had me en route from Allentown, PA, and also that I was still checked in at the hotel there....um, no. I was in Springfield, OH, all damn weekend, thank you very much. After that, I figured I'd be waiting at least another few days since I was SURE I was now at the bottom of the list for getting a trainer. No so. I got a call about 2 hours later from Greg Johnson, a trainer from Louisiana.
Greg showed up at the hotel around 3pm, and we got headed out to Columbus, OH, to get a trailer. He explained he was so late because the dispatchers kept assigning and re-assigning loads "every damn 10 minutes." We hooked to a trailer bound for Maryland, figured out that the registration paperwork for the trailer was expired, and called to have a new one faxed to a truck stop about an hour away. That's when I got behind the wheel.
Now you've gotta understand something - trucks are big. They're big when you're passing them on the road, and they're also big when you're sitting behind the wheel with a 53' trailer containing 37,000lbs of cargo hanging out behind you.
Starting out in a loaded rig you've never driven, in a place you've never been, is not something for everyone. Yes, I'm tooting my own horn here. Shamelessly. Driving a truck isn't for everyone, either, as I've seen by some of the driving here in the T/A Travel Center truck lot tonight (but I'm getting ahead of myself here.)
So I started driving. In Monday rush-hour traffic in Columbus, OH, headed east for Maryland. I was surprised at how nicely this truck drives, and I may hope to get one issued to me when I'm done training. We managed to get as far as somewhere in western Maryland over the next 6 hours. I was definitely put through a trial-by-fire, driving first into rain, then the dark, then more rain, fog, and dark. Greg also took us down a short-cut that takes about 50 miles off the route he had planned. 2-lane roads through Pennsylvania and into Maryland are about as fun as roads back in the northeast. Twisty, hilly, and narrow. We finally made it to a truck stop in Maryland around midnight, and got parked.
My first night in a truck was interesting. I'm extremely thankful to be training in this particular model because it's incredibly roomy for it's size. I have WAY more space in the top bunk than I expected to have. International did a good job designing the sleeper on this truck. Despite being parked on a slope so I was constantly rolling towards the cliff that leads to a 5 foot drop to the floor below, I slept decently well.
This morning we got rolling around 9am, headed for Baltimore. We got to the T/A here around 2pm, and went inside to get cleaned up. My first shower experience on the road was quite pleasant, actually. The truck stop here has 30-some odd individual grooming rooms. They're fully equipped with a sink, toilet, chair, and an open-concept shower stall. And they have a full staff that cleans every room after each use, so each driver gets a fresh room.
The T/A here in Baltimore is quite the place. The parking lot is quite huge. We were lucky and got here early, so getting a good parking space was easy. Now that we've both showered, we're sitting here in the cab, enjoying the 65 degree sunshine with the windows down, shooting the shit and watching the show of drivers. We currently have an empty space to our left, and we're hoping and praying that someone with a reefer trailer (refrigerated trailer) doesn't park there. Listening to a diesel engine running all night to keep a trailer cold is no fun. I'm not sure how reefer drivers can do it, the noise is incredible.
I think I'll wrap up for now. I hope to be able to take some pictures and upload sometime soon.
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