Good evening folks. I know I'm a bit late with this week's update, but we've been running hard, coast-to-coast loads in this final week of my training.

We started out with a load to Chicago from Atlanta. Then Ohio, back to Chicago. Then it happened: I finally got my wish to go out west! (Austin Powes voice) You can't go any more west than Los Angeles, baby, yeah!

The truck was only shut off at truckstops along the way, otherwise, it was humming at highway speeds for almost 35 hours straight.

Then we got a load back to Chicago. We were routed through Las Vegas and Denver, which is all very mountainous. I was excited about that because I really wanted to experience some real mountains with a trainer before tackling them on my own. Well, he would have none of that. It was a heavy load and since he's owner operator, he decided to take the cheap and lazy way back through Albuquerque, Amarillo, OKC, St Louise, etc. Oh well.

Currently just left Chicago with a load to Virginia. We got about a hour and a half outside of Chicago this morning when I realized that my wallet had fallen out of the truck back at the Shipper. So, I had to agree to pay him the cost of fuel to go back. That put us in the middle of rush hour. We have until midnight to deliver the load so we have some wiggle room. But still, needless to say, he wasn't very happy.

I was hoping to be done by tomorrow but I'm just shy of the hours I need. Looks like I'm going to miss this Fourth of July. I will be home by Monday or Tuesday though because my trainer is going on a big vacation then.

Well, that's all I've got for now. See you next week!