Is there one State or region that is best to start your OTR trucking career in?

Seems like you'll have all the bases covered & be well prepared to start.
In the Navy, "It's not just a job, it's an adventure."
In trucking, "It's not just a job, it's a lifestyle."

Ah, yes, you mentioned pizza.
There's a Pizza Hut close to my home here & it's the real deal. Love that Hawaiian Pizza with the pineapple & ham.

 

Went in a knockoff Pizza Hut, and they used ketchup instead of tomato sauce. They said thought it is the same stuff. The McDonalds & KFC's are terrible; one visit was enough. Both full of fat Oriental people also; welcome to fast food. Can get good fresh milk here in Carrefore or Super Walmart; just as good as in USA.

Wife now wants to move to San Francisco; we have friends there, but they're rich, I'm not. So it's still Las Vegas if we do move back. My big problem here is, we bought a very nice 3 bedroom 2 bath condo & most everyone else in the complex are successful young Chinese couples. The problem is, as with their culture, they bring their parents to live with them from the remote villages & farms & the parents don't want to assimilate. Piss on the sidewalk, constantly spitting everywhere, dump the garbage cans on the sidewalk looking for stuff, hang clothes on the tree limbs, talk so loud it rattles the windows, throw garbage out the windows. Caught two digging wells beside the buildings; said, "I'm not drinking that stuff out of the faucet." The young couples work so much, they don't really see what their parents are doing. The association managers say it's like running an adult daycare center for people with demetia. My friends from San Francisco have condo's in complex that are mostly foreigners & they don't have that problem.

 

I've seen the escalator thing many times. I'm actually embarrassed for them at times. Saw one couple keep tripping trying to step on the down escalator, while trying to go up.

We went into a condo building under construction and had to use the construction elevator. Some people on the elevator with us said,"I can't believe in a brand new building, the elevator is already in such bad condition."

Almost hit a woman on my motorcycle who stepped into the street without looking. She said, "It's not my responsibility to look first, it's your responsibility to blow your horn and warn me."

One guy and his wife saw us on the street & the guy said loudly to my wife, "What's the matter, why didn't you marry a Chinese man?" She replied," Look in the mirror and that will answer your question?" His wife looked like she went into shock & he was furious.

 

Driving in the wrong lane is the main problem here. It was drunk driving until they strengthend the law. Now, if you're drunk, lose liscense for life. Drunk and kill one person, life in prison and all your possessions, bank account, home, etc. go to victims family. Drunk and kill 2 or more people, execution within 30 days of conviction, plus everything goes to victims families. It's no bluff either, they follow thru on the penalities.
I'm familiar with the racism. I'm white and keep a clean-cut appearance, but to no avail. Went to get cable TV turned on & the woman yelled, as soon as we walked in, "what are you doing with that foreigner." She kept screaming insults and everytime someone walked in the door she would tell them, "you can get in front of the foreigner." You would think they hit the lottery, and not one person refused to cut in front of us. Finally, we went upstairs to the top guy, and he came down and took care of us, but didn't say anything to the woman.
Was refused a hotel room in Beijing because, "we don't want foreigners in our hotel." It was very, very cold and windy, we had a reservation, and a 3 year old baby and the guy told us to get out. We called the police and they defended the hotel so we had to find another hotel.
My friend from Rochester, NY was living here, and at a car wash with his Chinese wife and child and they kept putting him to the back of the line until he finally just left.
There's more stuff I won't list, but I have noticed if a white guy goes into a massage place, he's put to the front and fawned over with a lot of free "benefits", the locals don't get.
Wow, now that I'm remembering this stuff, Las Vegas is looking better all the time.
Have had several people try to set me up in accidents with my motorcycle; they start screaming for compensation, I play dumb and ride off into the sunset. One guy T-boned me and screamed I broke his leg, I left while he was screaming. A woman did the same and was screaming,"stop that guy, he tried to kill me." Incidents like this have happened several time, and I never stop, if I stop, I lose. Viva, Las Vegas!!

 

I've only noticed diesel trucks here. The drivers are very aggressive and reckless; blast through red lights, stop signs, yield signs. When I pick my little first grader up at school, the truckers don't even slow down, with little children everywhere, sidewalks, crossing the road, etc. The truckers just blow air horns & blast right through. Even though they have laws as to weight limits, most trucks are 10's of thousands of pounds overweight. Last year just in the Shanghai area, over 5000 people were killed by truckers. It won't stop until the mayors of the cities & towns realize how much money they can make writing tickets. Here's a good one; I had some lumber, etc delivered to my condo, and the guy was driving a large pickup truck. A cop gave him an over-length ticket because the tailgate was down. Had to pay right then also. I paid half because I felt sorry for the driver. $200 Chinese dollars was the fine.
The Thai police must not know the significance of the Al Pacino mural on the mudflaps or they would have them removed.
There's still some pretty shady DOT cops (Diesel Cops, we call them), in the USA. Plenty at weigh stations in Texas, Ohio, Virginia, Missouri, Washington State. Tennesee used to be the worst until there was a big federal crackdown on them. Tennessee was very open about being corrupt. I was pulled in and told, "you're being pulled in because the owner of the company isn't paying his dues." Those guys would even show up at trucking terminals in Tennessee, and ask for donations for the re-election campaign of the top guy, and if the trucking company owner didn't "donate", they would pull every truck into the weigh stations for inspection and they all got phoney tickets. You won't see much of that anymore because the internet age & cell phone cameras is in full swing making it so easy for the word to spread and to get caught. There's still lots of phoney tickets being written to make the diesel cop look like he's doing his job.

 

I lived in Nigeria, West Africa for 19 years. I miss carrying a whip to beat the other drivers with.

The best place to start out in is Texas for the simple reason that they do not have a state income tax there. Missouri, where I live does. You will be 7 percent ahead on state taxes and 1 percent ahead on local tax.