Starting with Maverick at the end of the month.

So, it is finally done. I'm finished with all my training, and tomorrow morning I go in and get assigned a truck of my own. Odds are I'll have to take a rental car to a terminal in another state to pick it up, but that's a tiny quibble. They asked if I wanted to go home first, but since Christmas is in two weeks I said 'nah'. Let me get out the and get to running for a little bit, then I'll go home for the holidays.

It feels good to not be a 'trainee' anymore.

 

Sitting in my truck now, about 90 miles from Atlanta. Got a 7am delivery in the morning, and I've never been to Atlanta before and I hear the traffic can be crazy so I'm gonna give myself an extra hour to make it.

First day alone was ... something. Got to my first shipper just fine, and the load was a nice 2 day 650-ish mile load, so I was feeling good. But that went away when it turned out that the shop gave me a bad truck key, so I ended up locked out of my truck for 4 hours after I went inside to use the bathroom. Which caused me to not get loaded at 7pm and instead not get loaded until 3:30 am. And then turned out I needed my lumber tarps instead of my steel tarps, and loading those things onto a 5 foot tall load from the ground alone with barely any room on each end of the trailer was an experience. I definitely re-thought my career choice there for a minute, but in the end I got in done and got on the road.

 

Heh, sensing a theme. I'm loading in GA, and the beams I'm getting are 50' ... which means my 2 steel tarps aren't long enough.

At least this place has a tarping station.

 

Still rolling. Just finished getting loaded with paper folks in Danville, IL and I get to go home for the first time since I left for training in October.. It's about a 6 hour drive home, and I don't have to leave until Tuesday Morning, so I'll actually a decent Christmas at home.

 

Nope, Ft Dodge, IA. Then I load at that same place for a run to southern IL for Wednesday.