Greenest possible trucker here.

Hello! I just finished my first-ever run and will be sitting in a Flying J for the next two days, so I figured this is as good a time as any to get active on this forum and steal all your accumulated wisdom.

I'm 22, and decided to go the trucking route after I drove from NH to AR for a friend's wedding. I was already thinking of leaving my current job at an answering service, and after passing my 473rd CR England truck, ended up calling them. It took about 3 months to sort out various paperwork issues (being born overseas as an army brat makes getting your report of birth a pain in the rear, and the DMV is terrible on principle), but I finally ended up getting my CDL. Now I'm training on 6000 mile a week dedicated team run for CRE.

I wasn't sure what to expect once I got on the road, but aside from just taking my first shower in 5 days, this past week driving has been pretty awesome.

 

According to my trainer, normally we'd be able to shower at least every other day on this run, but this week we were trying to beat some storms despite being governed to 62mph, so we didn't stop any longer than the DOT requires. If the next run goes like this one did, I'm just going to ask him to wake me up when he stops for fuel on his drive shift so I can grab a 5-10 minute shower while he fuels up. I'd rather miss a little bit of sleep than smell like a rotten onion and make the workers at every loading dock retch.

 

To put it another way, since this was my first week on the road, everything my trainer said was gospel. He said that we didn't have time to shower, so I didn't question it. I don't want to be the guy who doesn't know a goshdarned thing, but still has an opinion on everything.