My new career with Superior Carriers begins!

I will say a prayer for you that this will be your last week. I know how you feel from talking to you last week. Hang in there. You can make it. I know it is hard to try and not take it personal. I know you have gotten mixed messages from you trainer so it is confusing. Only thing I can think of is maybe they want to be absolutely positive you are ready to go.

They may be just covering their bases as far making sure you know as much as possible before going solo. God forbid we turn one of these trailers over. Million dollar disaster right there between clean up costs, lost equipment, fines, etc. You have made it this far so DON'T quit and DON'T let your trainer get under your skin.

Talk to you soon.

 

Well said.

 

Well I think I had my first true oh sh...t what do I do now experience Thursday afternoon. Had to make a Friday morning delivery in Alabama just outside of Birmingham. Got there early Thursday afternoon so I figured I would case the place out and see if they had any parking so I could just park there for the night.

Found the place easy enough as it was only two miles off the main highway. They had 3 gates and only one labeled saying visitors and employees. I figured I was a visitor so I passed up the first two gates and went on down to the last gate. Turns out you aren't getting a big truck through that entrance. I figured no big deal. I will just go down the road a few hundred yards and there should be some place to turn around. After all it is a huge plant with rail cars and all. I figured there were big trucks all over the place in the area.

Boy was I wrong.....Once you pass that last gate (I could have backed up to the second gate at this point), you are pretty well done finding a place big enough to get turned around. I should have know as I have been to Alabama several times through back country two lane roads. Anyway, I kept going thinking eventually I would find some place to turn around. After pulling some pretty big hills and going around sharp blind curves for about 3-4 miles I just stopped right there and put my 4 ways on.

I thought, what in the heck am I going to do??? I was beginning to panic pretty good at this point but I kept my head on straight and made sure I did not do anything stupid that would get the truck stuck or turned over. Keep in mind this was a narrow two lane road out in the middle of no where so there were no cars coming or going. After sitting there trying to figure out what was the best thing to do, a pickup truck came along with two guys in it. They started to stop behind me but I waved them on around the truck and got them to stop. I asked them if there was a place anywhere down the road I could turn my truck around. They said yes there was a big strip mine about two more miles up the road that had a big place to turn around.

They were headed there so they said I could follow them. So I proceed to follow them up and down more big hills, around sharp curves. I had to keep the tractor in the middle of the road so the trailer would not track off the edge of the road. The guys were nice enough to wait on me as I could only go about 15 mph. I finally reach the turn around point and had to make my way back. It took me forever but there was a huge sense of relief. Got back to the main highway and parked it at the Loves just down the road for the night. Needless to say I slept well due to being mentally wore out.

Few lessons learned on this one for sure.