How did a 50-something,nicely brought up mother from London, England wind up driving an 18 wheeler across The United States? It became so much more complicated than one would imagine. However, adventures are adventures and hiccups are where the stories lay…

August 16, 2014 sarah Uncategorized

Why on earth would a fifty-something, carefully brought-up mother all of a sudden make a decision to go trucking?

It’s a good question and, like the majority of good questions it had answers both easy and complex. From ‘it sounds like fun’ through ‘it’s a normal immigrant job’ via ‘well, earn more cash in a truck than I can having a Master’s degree’ with a detour along ‘I’ve driven ambulances and stretch limos, if I want to be bigger it’s either a truck or possibly a plane and this course is cheaper’…none of these reasons quite encapsulated all of it.

And these were merely the rationalisations for the much vaguer pull towards the massive beasties that I’d been observing on the roads ever since emigrating from the UK to Canada. There was clearly no rationalisation however for that other vague pull, a lifelong addiction to doing things merely because they’re a bit peculiar.

Adding to my list of reasons that it seemed like a terrific angle for a book on trucking assisted a tad when explaining to those who have no imagination, however, not much.

In all honesty, I hadn’t predicted fright when I breezed into Tri-County Truck Driver Training one afternoon in 2008. I merely needed to determine what it took to be a trucking lady. I wanted to see the United States, how hard might it be?

Not surprisingly there is a minor difference between learning how to handle a 75-foot, slow-moving guided missile and dreaming about getting money to see the continent; and actually earning a living. Spending 14 hours daily smelling of diesel. My first job was taking trailers packed with mail from East to West. Team driving across Canada’s unending prairies and over The Rockies, and sometimes getting lucky enough to return home via Texas. That Lake Effect Winter Storm was just an example of our countless weather-related narrow squeaks. North American trucking can be quite the storyline.

I’ve been almost arrested in Baltimore, sick as a dog in Tennessee, terrified in Chicago, Dallas and Detroit and dug from the snow twice in one night in Alberta. I’ve made buddies in Virginia and enemies here at home. And, given half a chance, I’d probably forget about how impossibly strenious it is and set off again to steer 18 wheels over the horizon.