Sleeping in a truck, what to expect?

i never wear shower shoes

 

Lol no they don't most have gyms.

If your a fitness guy. Buy a skipping rope and small set of hand weights. Combine that with walking/running around your truck. When looking for parking, don't be lazy and park as close to the terminal as possible. Park way back in the corner. Ya have to walk then. Plus most don't like parking back there so it's quieter lol

 

Also just watch what you eat. If your going to sit down and eat McDonald's everyday. Of course your going to pile on weight. I am a big guy in general but I've actually managed to lose weight since driving over here. Compared to back in Australia where we had less choices for food. Another good thing is a 12v cooler. Keep basic foods in your truck.

 

Watch what you eat. Getting big will affect how you sleep. The newest thing to hit truckers is sleep apnea. You get a big neck anything over like 17.5 inches they want you to get sleep apnea test. TA and Petro have a couple of their truck stops will a small gym not sure if they are still free or not. They used to only be for drivers that buy a lot of fuel from them.

 

Something I found that drowns the noise out well is a small cheap fan, the little plastic one's. there great for dead noise and a little breeze.

 

Staying in shape isn't easy. Have you ever driven all day on a long road trip? Did you want to go workout afterwards? No. This job is tiring but you don't get buff doing it. But still, there are guys running, stretching, doing dumbbells, and moving around before or after each day.

 

Many TA/Petros have a fitness area. An elliptical trainer and a bike, as well as a double stack weight set. They have a map of the parking lot so you know how far you have run/walked.

 

Park as far from the building as you can...extra walking is good for you and less noise than parking near the building or fuel islands.
I like parking behind shopping centers when I can...much less noise.

The electric cooler and a microwave can save money and you eat better than any fast food.
I cook at home and freeze meals when I can.

 

You will establish a high idle with the cruise controls and transmission in nuetral and parking brakes set. Then you will establish a heating or cooling scheme in your cab, preferably with the forward windshield blanket covering that glass up front. That way you can ease the heat or cooling on low to medium out of the front cab vents towards you without freezing you or roasting you.

You will park on the highest corner of the truckstop lot where possible. Never in the valley or low places of the lot. The exhaust of 1000 trucks flows downhill and collects among those at the bottom. Then accumulates in your body until you get nauseated which is your final warning to get clean air back into yourself before you pass out from oxygen loss and exhaust poisoning.

You do not sleep in places like Memphis. You will pass on through Memphis until you find a nice quieter truckstop far from Memphis and sleep there. I tend to sleep on certain mountains and spots around the USA that suits me at least two hours from any city. Theory goes that thuggies, prositutes etc will not drive, walk that far to bother me HEY YOU NEED COMPANY!? BANG BANG BANG on your sleeper. Sleep? Ha. That goes bye bye quick.

You will not sleep until your truck and trailer with load is physically on the customer's property prior to appointment time. There you will sleep. If you do not sleep where you can at a moment's notice like the Infantry or Marines do, then you will not be safe later tonight when you are pusing 600 miles overnight to deliver by sunrise.

You will NOT get the same sleep every day. You WILL NOT get the same time to sleep every night. Sometimes you are required to sleep by day. When in winter storms you will get up every few hours to rock the truck back and forth on it's developing snow bed to keep it packed. (And you did park facing downgrade just a smidgen so you can always get out no matter what. Never park upgrade against snow or ice)

When you are asleep that means no bosses, no family no nobody bothers you. You silence the qualcomm, you silence the cell phone by pulling the battery out of it. You silence the laptop and shut it down and put it away. Your job is to sleep. Its a very difficult job in the beginning.

Driving tired is worse than driving drunk. You are NOT safe. I don't give a #### who you are or how powerful you can be running 3000 miles around the USA without stopping. You are only human. Unpaid sleep will accumulate inside of you until your mind says enough and you go straight to REM sleep at 65 mph and eyes wide open in dream land. Until you have experienced that horror you cannot understand how valuable good sleep really is.

Finally but not last. When you go home for your monthly time off, tell your family to leave you the hell alone for about 24 hours as you catch up on your sleep. It's really important.

Sleep is your number two defense against future health problems in life, food is your number one. Good quality sleep is a goal worth having.

It will take you a few weeks to get comfortable with the particulars of sleeping inside a truck that you have been issued. Cleaning the tractor's cab, new matress, no bed bugs, infestations, disinfecting with 10% bleach, regular laundry and so on is a never ending cycle of work that is geared to making sure you stay healthy in that cab. As a rule people are not healthy.

Finally but not least. You need a range of sleeping gear. A big fat rectangular two man sleeping bag rated for -30 is a advantage in winter and it can be used between your thin materess and bedding during summer to keep cool. You can always add mexican blankets (You will know them on sight in a truckstop store, they are generally woven and are very thick) by the dozen so that no matter what happens you can nest inside that bunk. (You laugh, but Im dead serious here... your life depends on it maybe...)

In winter always face the tractor east into the sunrise. If for some reason you have a dead truck you wont wake up frozen and dead. There are a number of other thoughts that go with winter time sleeping. But I'll save fhem for later.