How did a 50-something,well brought up mother from London, England land up driving an 18 wheeler across America? It turned out to be much more complicated than you would think. However, adventures are adventures and hiccups are where the stories lay…
Why on earth would a fifty-something, nicely brought-up mother suddenly make a decision to go trucking?
It’s a good question and, like most good questions it had answers both simple and complex. From ‘it sounds like fun’ through ‘it’s a traditional immigrant job’ via ‘well, I’m able to earn more income in a truck than I can by using 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 it all.
And these were merely the rationalisations for a much vaguer pull towards the massive beasties that I’d been seeing on the highway ever since emigrating from the UK to Canada. There was no rationalisation needless to say for the other vague pull, a lifelong obsession with doing things merely because they’re somewhat weird.
Adding to my list of justifications that it seemed like a terrific angle for a book on trucking aided a little when trying to explain to those with no imagination, however, not much.
In reality, I hadn’t anticipated fright when I breezed into Tri-County Truck Driver Training one afternoon in 2008. I simply needed to know what it took to be a trucking lady. I wanted to observe North America, how hard could it be?
Of course there is a bit of a difference between studying to handle a 75-foot, slow-moving guided missile and dreaming of getting money to see the continent; and actually earning a living. Spending 14 hours per day smelling of diesel. My first job was taking trailers full of 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 escapade.
I’ve been almost arrested in Baltimore, sick as a dog in Tennessee, terrified in Chicago, Dallas and Detroit and dug out from the snow twice within a night in Alberta. I’ve made friends in Virginia and adversaries at home. And, given half a chance, I’d probably forget about how impossibly tiring it is and set off again to drive 18 wheels over the horizon.