Anybody feel like this?

It helps talking to yourself

 

Wow I had the same thought prior to becoming a truck driver.... I store over 160 songs on my BlackBerry and when I go on road trips I am enjoying my favorite songs the whole way. I wondered what would happen if I got tired of the music. I guess I would just listen to the radio then for new songs or perhaps songs that are not my genre to see if I can like something new. About 10 years ago I remember a guy in a yahoo chat room who said he was driving a truck while on the voice chat. Back then I didn't know it was possible to travel with the internet like that. So he was just conversating with everyone. I may still enjoy it though, as there are times when I am on the road and just listen to the sound the tires make on the pavement while I think about life.

 

Or making faces at the kids in cars.

 

I used to feel this way before I started carrying enough podcasts for full-time, every day listening. I also felt this way when I was solo OTR until I could carry my dog. Most drivers, however, prefer to feel sorry for them self rather than DO anything to help. I suspect a large pportion of the drivers are in driving because they left decision-making to others until they wound up driving. I've never been in an industry with such a high proportion of passive actors. You never have to look for long, or very hard, to find people that just accept things even when their is an easier and better way to do things. It seems it's more important to do domething the way it's always been done than make any improvement. This holds true even when the new way is easier, faster, cheaper, etc. than the old way. shrug.

 

Get a rider who likes to travel and things will change dramatically. My better half is on the truck with me and we are having a good time.

 

I left a very well paid and secure career in law enforcement (18 years) to pursue trucking. I couldn't wait another 9 years to full retirement to get into it. So far it has been very rewarding, unlike police work. Anyone out there who has been a cop should know what I'm talking about, and what that ungreatful soul stealing profession will do to your life.

I wrote in an earlier post on another thread about how one showers off the grease and sweat from driving and off loading, but you can't shower off the b/s cop work will do to you. Trucking is a life style and a state of being; you drivers are correct in saying (even in harshness) that if one thinks driving is a "last resort" career, then you shouldn't be here in the first place. That's a true statement! Just as not everyone can be a cop, or a pilot, or a carpenter. Trucking finds us, we don't find it. It found me one night when I had a cup of coffee at my favorite stop when I was on duty. I met a driver out of North Carolina who was stopped for breakfast. We chatted for a while and he told me about trucking; this was nearly 10 years before I finally took the plunge and left my career as a Sheriff's Deputy to get into trucking specifically.

I was called every colorful cleche that pertained to being "stupid." Well, 4 years later I'm still happy and have made the metal change into the trucking world, and Boy! does it feel good gents!

Being bored is never a bad thing. This gives you time to think over your choice in careers. Though I agree with one driver's statement saying, that because he is bored this doesn't mean he's going to kill someone on the road. It seems to me that every time I hear of a truck wreck the driver was distracted doing something else, besides focusing on driving. This argument can't be broken. Stay safe drivers! Long live trucking! 10-10 on the side!

 

H i, i've been across this usa many times and up down , everyway, what i would do is make a game out of it, i'm in Ia and i never seen these thing's before, so i would make up card's from camground book and if my trip takes me to Ca and i go thru ut, i do my trip planing as part of that, like for example i plan my trip too see utah as my first break, so many things too see, like the red bluffs along the interstate, there real neet too see, as the sun sets , they change differnt colors , so i look at my cards , yup thats there name and go too the next one, rest area used too be full trinket junkees that would sell there indian stuff, stuff i never seen before , just little stuff like that breaks the boredum for me , i know it sounds like im a touring the usa on company time but im not, i have too stop and go the bathroom break anyway, as i sit there on the cement ledge eating my lunch in ut, i felt this scracthing and poking my backside , it was a chipmunk or something, i gave him a piace of bread and off he went , then came back and then went back to his spot, things like that make my day , too feed the wildlife and breaks up my boredum the rest of the day

 

Somebody watched "Smokey and Bandit" one too many times! Could be wrong though, maybe it was the RubberDuck that built up these high expectations!

 

Watch a few more episodes of BJ and the bear and listen to some old 70's trucking tapes and you'll be ok.And maybe Smokey and the Bandit with the deleted scenes.

 

There's plenty of ways to entertain yourself just take something you like that's practical and improvise.