Watkins & Shepard - The Adventure Begins October 8th

I'm pretty comfortable with the speed and gear match, but it's memorizing the exact RPM I need to hit each gear that's going to take some practice. The adding the numbers together thing is what they taught us in CDL school and that's definitely helpful, especially figuring out which gear you need to be in for on/off ramps.

 

Saturday

We have the weekend off from orientation. There is a truck (and trailer) available to us if we want to practice at the yard. I started to walk there this morning (it's only about a mile from the hotel), but one of the mechanics recognized me and gave me a lift. There was a problem with the truck. It kept dying at an idle yesterday (we had to borrow another truck on Friday) and we thought it'd been fixed. I asked the mechanic who'd given me a ride to look at it. While he was working on that, I walked around the yard and looked for the trailer that we were supposed to use for practicing. By the time I'd found the trailer, the truck was good to go.

I practiced coupling/uncoupling for about an hour. I want to be comfortable enough with it that I don't need to look at the paper to double-check myself to make sure I'm not missing a step. Then I took the trailer for a ride around the yard so that I could practice my turning. I dropped it back where I'd found it (90 degree maneuver). I had to get out and look twice, but I got it in there. I pulled up a few times and straight backed it so that I could put it exactly between the lines. I left it straighter than I'd found it.

Then I bobtailed to the lower parking lot to practice shifting. RL taught us to "double-down" yesterday. I knew what it was (skipping a gear as you downshift), but they never explained how to do it in my CDL school. That lot is long enough that you can get it up to sixth gear and then drop back down to fourth, which I got very comfortable with. As I was finishing up, another student had shown up to practice. He got in and we bobtailed up to where RL parks his truck and I got out.

I'd been there for a few hours and was hungry, so I walked back to the hotel to have lunch and do some reading.

I walked back to the terminal in the afternoon (because I wanted a little more practice and also because I was bored and needed the exercise). This time, I only bobtailed. I drove around the yard and then headed back to the lower parking lot to work on shifting again. I parked the truck back where RL keeps it. Apparently, I had left the headlights on this morning (the mechanic who had fixed the truck noticed it). I never turned them on, so I must have bumped the switch when I was doing all the coupling/uncoupling this morning. Another student had been practicing right up until I got back out there this afternoon, so the truck had only been sitting there with its lights on for a few minutes. I'm glad he caught that.

I was only there for about half an hour this time. Like I said, I needed the exercise

I'm going to go back out tomorrow to work on coupling again. I just want to get it down solid. It's not particularly difficult, but I think I need more repetition to feel comfortable.

 

Sunday

I finished up the last of the written tests this morning. In the afternoon, I walked to the terminal to get some practice in. I mostly worked on shifting and parking bobtail. I backed it into a different spot every time I got to the other end of the lower parking lot. I am now much more comfortable about backing. When I'm setting up to hook to a trailer, takes me a few tries to get it centered on the trailer (with the 3" overhang on each side), but I'm getting better at that too.

Which leaves: speed matches

 

We started with five, but there are only three of us now.