How did a 50-something,nicely brought up mother from London, England end up driving an 18 wheeler across North America? It turned out to be so much more complicated than you’d think. However, adventures are adventures and hiccups are where the stories lay…

June 16, 2013 sarah Uncategorized

Why on earth would a fifty-something, well brought-up mother suddenly decide to drive a truck?

It was a really good question and, like most good questions it had answers both simple and complex. From ‘it sounds like fun’ through ‘it’s a normal immigrant job’ via ‘well, I could earn more money in a truck than I could 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 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 enjoying watching on the highway ever since emigrating from the UK to Canada. There was clearly no rationalisation obviously for that other vague pull, a lifelong dependence on doing things merely because they are a little bit odd.

Adding to my list of justifications that it seemed like a terrific angle for a book on trucking assisted just a little when explaining to people who have no imagination, although not much.

I should confess, I hadn’t expected fright when I breezed into Tri-County Truck Driver Training one afternoon in 2008. I merely wished to know what it took to become a lady trucker. I wanted to discover the US, how hard could it be?

Obviously there is a minor difference between learning to handle a 75-foot, slow-moving guided missile and dreaming aboutgetting paid to see the continent; and actually earning a living. Spending 14 hours every day smelling of diesel. My first job was taking trailers packed with mail from East to West. Team driving across Canada’s unending prairies and through The Rockies, and sometimes getting lucky enough to get 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 adventure.

Ihave been almost arrested in Baltimore, sick as a dog in Tennessee, terrified in Chicago, Dallas and Detroit and dug out of the snow twice in a night in Alberta. I’ve made buddies in Virginia and adversaries in Ontario. And, given half a chance, I would probably forget all about how impossibly strenious it is and set off again to steer 18 wheels over the horizon.