NEW CDL Student Travel Log

As promised, I suggested I would start detailing my journey back to Prime for Orientation and training in a thread.
I started from my hometown in Oxnard, California. It was a comfortable 73F when I left.

Right off the bat, I walked out the door wearing my tennis shoes instead of my boots I wanted to wear! Talk about getting off on the wrong foot! LOL...Sorry, couldn't help but stick that in there!

I had to switch trains only a few hours later after reaching Los Angeles. We got off to a bit of a late start. Then the second thing I left, was my brand new pillow on the first train dang it! I swear I'd forget my head if it wasn't screwed on straight!

It's day 2 and we just passed the New Mexico State line while eating Breakfast in the dining car. I can see outside my window that this is truckers country! I've spotted plenty of Swift along I-40 here and some CFI, Walmart and a sizable truck stop about 15 miles back in AZ. It's a little chillier than back in CA, but not bad overall.

Sorry, don't mean to rub it in for all of you that go ahead and take the Grey Dog into Springfield, but there is no better way to travel then by rail! Even in coach you get 4x the space to stretch out, the chairs recline almost completely flat and you get 3 squares a day if that is something you need! Me...not! I could afford to skip a few meals!

I'll hopefully have some success posting pictures from my ipad onto this post and check in tomorrow!


Safe travels!

**If anyone knows how come the pictures all rotate and don't display properly, please do let me know! They were properly positioned in the preview portion, but then they all went sideways on me... (
Global Responder

 

Sorry Superpet, my choice of words was probably not the best. What I meant by "my journey back", was meant as to mean my way back from California to MO, as opposed to returning after being their before...hehehe. It is my first journey out to MO for Orientation. I'm a mature driver, but new nonetheless. I'm reinventing myself and hoping trucking is going to me my last career change.

Unfortunately the Amtrak does NOT go directly into Springfield. It goes to Kansas City, then I change to another train called the Missouri River Runner to get a little closer to Springfield via Sedalia. Then I hired a Shuttle Van to Springfield. It's not a very practical way of getting there, but it is certainly more enjoyable than the Greyhound Bus. You get to see a part of the countryside that you would otherwise not get to see via OTR. I'm absolutely enjoying the journey so far.

As far as prices, I guess it depends on what is pricey for some. The fare was about double what it would be on the Grey Dog, but I felt it was worth the money easy. How much would you pay for a decent Hotel room for the night? I kinda look at it that way. I get a comfortable semi flat bed to sleep on, food that is easily 10x better than any airline food you'd get if you traveled by air.

Springfield is getting slammed with snow I hear, so tomorrow's travel should be interesting.

I'll provide as much detail as possible once I get to Springfield and get into Orientation.

Thanks everyone!

 

Thanks JimRoy for the kind words. I'm looking forward to it!

 

I have read in other threads that you can't start as a Student CDL and go straight into Tankers. I thought I read somewhere that you needed to have 1 year under your belt.
Can I ask why you want to driver Tankers so bad? Do you just want the experience? Are you looking to stay on the East Coast? Myself, I'm lookin to stay out West as much as possible, so Tankers wouldn't be my first choice as I read somewhere that the Tanker division of Prime is more centrally focused in the East Coast area.

I am going to inquire about "Prime Floral" when I'm Orientation just to have a better understanding who they are. Maybe I'll be able to hook up with them later after I go solo. Their small distribution is right here in my hometown and I suspect they do a great deal of runs out of here.

Update:

It's 10:45pm CST. I can't tell how much snow is on the ground, we're out the middle of nowhere Colorado at this point, but I know when we ran out of daylight there was already a few inches on the ground in Southern Colorado.

Will be interesting to see what we wake up with in Kansas City, MO tomorrow morning at 7am.