THE ADVENTURES CONTINUE - DFO gets a truck and hops on Schneider's IC Choice Program

Sometimes its very relaxing to come to my thread here after browsing other threads on this forum and seeing the ****storms that they are made of, giant signatures that take up half the page... ya'll know which thread I'm referring too LOL. There is a good reason I never have and never will bring up or ask about referrals and while I appreciate it I will never accept any offers for one over the internet... I prefer to retain SOME anonymity and besides, the reason I post here is just as much for my own enjoyment as I hope it is for others. I'm not gonna try to teach y'all anything, more like "learn from the **** I do wrong" LOL. Its much more entertaining that way isn't it??

Its been way to quiet here, hell, moosc, throw an insult this way so we can add some excitement back into this thread again!

Yet another long day today. Over the past couple weeks I have been running differently than I normally have - notice all the away from home restarts., etc. I'm actually finding it works out well for me with the loads I like to run. Running 400-450 mile days and rolling recaps I would not have been able to pull off several of the strings I have put together. Running 550+ days its no problem, but it does take a little more of a toll on myself for sure. When I'm usually up for a movie or watching a few episodes of a show I like, maybe even playing a computer game for a bit, driving for 10 hours means I'm ready to hit the bunk for 10 as soon as I stop moving.

After delivering in NC and heading back right above the border for my pickup in VA, I started back towards 95 to head south. The sun had barely set, all that remained was the blue and grey sky tinted with just a little bit of orange. This is my favorite time of night, when my own headlights just begin to become visible against the pavement, the daytime heat is gone and I can roll my window down and listen to the whine of the tires, feel the light rocking of the truck in the wind and just relax.

I can honestly say the #1 reason that I do what I do is because I enjoy it. I know a lot of people are in trucking for the money, or because it was a career they could get into without a 4 year degree, or maybe it was just in their family and the tradition carries on. But for me its just because I like to drive. There is a difference between just driving the truck and actually driving the truck. Its a good feeling when the truck becomes a part of me, when everything I do is done without giving a second thought, every action is as natural and smooth as can be. When I change lanes the tractor will never angle from the trailer... it is slow and smooth and seems to just shift sideways across lanes. Each gear falls into place without as much as being a tooth off when I split each shift through the top side of the gears. I roll on and off the throttle, I don't touch the brakes for hours and hours on end even going through town. I watch my surroundings and time the lights where the only stop I come to is when I've reached my destination. If I need to slow down I'll back off, drop a gear if needed and let the jake bring me to a crawl before I touch the brakes.

My greatest fear with this career is that all it can take is one serious incident/accident and that's it... you're done. Face it, you can be as careful as possible for years on end and all it takes is that one mistake and its over. I try very hard to never put myself into a position where something like that could arise, but so did all those other drivers that we read about that went 20 years without an accident then managed to end their career in a matter of seconds. I'm not a very religious person, but I do say a prayer every day asking that myself and those around me are kept safe.

Inside my sleeper at night I find myself wondering why I am OK with this... why I am OK being a thousand miles from home, sleeping in a different state each night, many times eating food I didn't cook in a place where there is no one that I know. I can't answer that question. I think there is just something inside of me, something inside this person that was never a rule-breaker, never a risk-taker, that enjoys a little bit of the uncertainty and the unknown.

Don't know why I felt like sharing that tonight, but why not... been a while since I've actually posted something with some real thought behind it.

 

Good stuff... yeah 240 is the only way worth going in and out of there... did Navigo take you on the goatpath under the little bridge through the farmland to get there in order to save .0001 miles out of route?