Running With Watkins & Shepard

Thanks Wedge!

It will be a bit tough to focus today as I've received some bad news about my dad's health. He's 78 now and has been in poor health for some time. I talked with my mom Saturday and it seems she's a bit more concerned than usual.

I've been with them since last August to help them as they have me. One of the hardest parts of making this decision was the thought of not being there for them to handle some of the everyday chores around the house.

Now of course they both tell me not to worry but we all know how that goes. I'll remain focused on my task at hand but my concerns for them will be more than subconscious for sure.

Anyway, I'll post the days events tonight and I'd like to thank ALL of YOU for all the support, kind words and great advice you've given me. It's been a pleasure to both share, and have great folks to share with! I have no family of my own other than my folks, brothers and sister and their kids and yet somehow, I feel as though I now have a much bigger one.

 

Hey everyone!

First, Thank you ALL for the words and prayers for me and my family. They are needed and will surly help!

So, on that note, I did stay focused today (although a bit tougher first thing this morning) and had a really great day! We had a couple new students come in today. Two for the ten day and two experienced guys. Now one of them has been out of driving for a while so he has a few new ropes to learn.

We met Tim for the first time today. In case I never mentioned this, Tim is the main safety and instructor guy there. He was on vacation last week (yeah right, drove all week to help his little boy) and Vern was down here to fill in last week. Tim's a great guy and really knows his stuff. So he spent a little time with us "two weekers" this morning and then we headed out to drive.

Me and another guy have already been out on the road and the other two are working on shifting still. So we were taken to do some city driving today. WHAT A BLAST!! And yep, a sweaty palm or two as well...LOL. We took that puppy places today I never thought I could drive it in but it really wasn't too bad. I just took my time, sized up the situation and went for it.

One particular situation was really cool and one of those sweaty palm moments. We're driving down this road, there's a set of RR tracks running parallel to it with another road just on the other side of the tracks also parallel to all of it. The distance between the roads was no more than 50 feet or so. That road was a VERY narrow residential street.

We had to make a right over the tracks and then an immediate left on the road on the other side. That was fun enough but the kicker was, the little 50 foot connecting road was obviously paved up to the track height but dropped right off each side about 2 feet! RL says..."Now whatever you do, don't drag those tandems into that hole or we'll be here a while"...LOL

There were 3 such situations along the route and both of us went through with no problems. Then it was all very tight, small town roads with RL saying, "left here, right here, straight on and left there...LOL

We had this one left turn that cut back at about 105 degrees from the road we were on. A tight turn to be sure but the kicker was, it was at a light and the lane coming at us was a hard right left turn complete blocked by trees so you could see...."maybe".....25 feet down it. Figuring out "when" to make our move was harder than making the left!

We could all feel the pressure was turned up a notch or two today. No surprise as this is do or die time here now. All in all, it was a really great day!

I'm going to call my folks shortly to see how dad is doing and pass along all the kind words and prayers you folks have extended us.

Folks,....I really don't have the words to adequately express how you've all touched me. But from the heart.....Thank you!!