How did a 50-something,well brought up mother from London, England find herself driving an 18 wheeler across the US? It ended up being a lot more complicated than one would expect. However, adventures are adventures and hiccups are where the stories lay…
What would make a fifty-something, carefully brought-up mother suddenly decide to become a trucker?
It was an excellent question and, like most good questions it had answers both simple and complex. From ‘it sounds like fun’ through ‘it’s an authentic immigrant job’ via ‘well, I could earn more cash in a truck than I could with a Master’s degree’ with a detour along ‘I’ve driven ambulances and stretch limos, if I need to get bigger it’s either a truck or maybe 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 seemed to be no rationalisation obviously for the other vague pull, a lifelong addiction to doing things merely because they are a little bit odd.
Adding to my list of justifications that it appeared to be a good angle for a book on trucking assisted somewhat when trying to explain to people with no imagination, but not much.
To be honest, I hadn’t anticipated panic when I breezed into Tri-County Truck Driver Training one afternoon in 2008. I merely wanted to know what it took to become a trucking lady. I wanted to discover America, how hard would it be?
Naturally there is a small distinction between finding out how to handle a 75-foot, slow-moving guided missile and dreaming of getting paid to see the continent; and actually earning a living. Spending 14 hours every day smelling of diesel. My first job was taking trailers filled with mail from East to West. Team driving across Canada’s vast 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 out of the snow twice in one night in Alberta. I’ve made buddies in Virginia and foes here at home. And, given half a chance, I would probably forget about how impossibly tiring it is and set off again to take 18 wheels over the horizon.