This one isn't close to me, but I can probably make it work (sleeping in the van again).

There's one in Orange Count , Riverside and Temucula.

The big problem here is nothing listed on the pricing and the class time is 5 weeks.

I'll check it out, because I can't just go with the first one I look at, but online there's just not much to go on. Bleh bleh bleh!

First will be nothing but online research.

Dootson School of Trucking
Ventura, CA


Google Maps says this is 18-28 minutes (12-15 miles) away from where I'll be living.

Their own website is actually very limited. It promises state-certified instructors with an average of over 21 years of OTR experience, but the rest of the information is very limited.

A few people mention Dootson on the boards here and none mention it in a bad ...

After a lot of eHow articles and skimming the posts here on the forums, here are the criteria I'm going to use to determine which school I go with:

1. Time in instruction. I'm actually not as worried about the classroom time if they'll give me the material to review at home, but I want as much time-in-truck as possible. I would prefer one-on-one time, but more than three to a truck is too many. I can learn from watching, so two to a truck would probably be the ideal. A minimum of 44 hours of instruction

...

Here's the hard part, for me. I already know which company I'm going with (Watkins Shepard) because I'm going to team with my boyfriend. I just need to fill out the application, take the class, pass the testing, and get them to hire me (okay, it sounded easy until I said all that).

The hard part right now, though, is to figure out where to go to school. I have one week left at my current job and I can make a little bit of money on the side by merchandising, but my minimal savings isn't ...

Okay, technically, this isn't really the day that I made my decision, but since this is the first day that I'm blogging about it, we'll just use our imaginations.

My boyfriend has been an OTR driver for our entire relationship (and most of the time that I've known him). My ex has custody of our kids at the moment (long, irritating story), so I've been thinking for a while about going on the road with him.

I finally decided it was time.

I ...