Start school in the morning - Ridge Career Center

The "old dog" and Wulfman75 made it safely to Joplin. We catch the 6:15am bus to Con-way Truckload in the Morning.

 

Well Wulfman75 and I survived Day 1 BARELY! The shuttle was supposed to pick us up at 6:15 this morning. I checked out about 5:35 and walked over to McDonalds and got breakfast and walked back. Got back about 5:55 and a few drivers were in the lobby. Then I met Wulfman75 and we were chatting. While we were chatting a few folks walked outside. A few minutes later Wulfman noticed the shuttle pulling up and it made a u-turn and took off. Apparantly the bus had pulled in and we couldn't see it from our vantage point and none of the other drivers bothered to say anything to us when they slipped out. The driver didn't come inside either. So needless to say we're not happy. So I run inside and get a # to a cab company and call one. While we're waiting for the cab the shuttle came around again and picked us up. So I called and canceled the cab. Fortunately nobody hassled us. Not cool at all tho of the other drivers. Well there was probably 10 or so drivers total. Only 3 of us were student graduates and one of the 3 had driven before back in the 90's.
Lots of paper work. Dot physical. Interviews. They made us feel quite welcome but also made it crystal clear that there's many ways to loose your job. We made $100 each today.
We were taken to Noesho, Mo to the Booneslick Lodge where we'll stay 'til Monday Morning. We'll be getting training at Crowder College Tues-Sat in their "Boot Camp". And if we survive, we'll head back to the Headquarters in Joplin next Monday to be hired. That's all for now.

 

Day 2. I reckon I should hang a tag on our fellow student. I'm gonna go with the "Captain" since he's a licensed boat captain. Day 2 went pretty well. We had about 3 hours of classroom work. Then lunch was good. It's an all you can eat buffet at the college at no expense to us. When we came back from lunch we went thru the pretrip inspection. We each got to uncouple and couple the tractor and trailer. The tractor is a KW T2000 13-speed. Then we spent a few hours pulling a 53' trailer working mainly on shifting on some abandoned backroads that they use as their track. The "captain" and I were a bit more comfortable with the shifting. Wulfman75's training wasn't using Con-ways technique on downshifting so he's playing catchup. He's a sharp guy, so I'm sure he'll improve rapidly.
We're back at the lodge now. We have a KFC in front of the lodge and we get dinner free there. We get the free continental breakfast at the lodge in the mornings.
That's it for now. We do have homework tonight.

 

Day 3. We started the day with a short road drive off campus. We each made a lap on the same route. The instructor went first showing us the route and doing a Smith System type commentary during the drive. The "old dog" went first and the drive went pretty well. The "captain" went second and "Wulfman75" went third. Those guys did pretty well also.
When we got the rig back to campus, we spent most of the day working on the 45* backing. We also slid the tandems, and practiced a little more on the pretrip. Katey ate lunch with us today. We had some really good conversation.
We all survived the day. We're heading out at 4am in the morning on a night drive.