Doing a Reddit AMA. Hope this can help verify I am who I am.

What's up reddit, I'm doing an AMA today as Reddit user Bear_Like. Hope you enjoy! Feel free to check my blog out as well!

Killing Time in Texas

It seems like everytime that I have these lengthy layovers, I happen to be in Texas. Not that I don't like Texas, it just seems that I not moving a lot of the time that I'm here. Anyway, I'm an hour or so out from leaving and heading east. I plotted my course back to Huntsville in such a way that I'll arrive with ample time to deliver, but not so early that my break will be split up. So, kudos to me for that one. Last night I found the vital missing piece to my sound system in the truck.

I think I've described this already, but just in case-- my sound system consists of a home stereo (of the sort with the speakers that you connect to the head unit), lots of cd's, and a 200 watt inverter to power it with. I plug the inverter up to my cig. lighter and voila I have great sound. The downside is that I have to deal with it skipping a lot. Sooooo, I decided that running the music directly off of my laptop is vital, so I set out to find a more powerful inverter, for a low price.

And last night I did that. 400 watt, two outlet inverter for $40.00. My 200 watt, single outlet inverter cost me $34.00. So I'm proud of my find. I tested it out not long ago and it can power both my stereo and laptop at the same time, while the truck is off! This is a huge success for me. All that is left, is finding the cable to connect my laptop directly into my stereo. And for that, I'll take some time at a Wal-Mart-- which I'm sure to pass at some point on my way to Huntsville. If not-- I can deal with cd's for two more days.

My back and arms are sore from having to deal with these incredibly shitty trailers that I keep getting stuck with. When the trailer isn't connected to the truck, the front portion of it sits on whats called "landing gear". In order to raise the landing gear once you connect to the truck, or lower it once you want to drop a trailer, you have to manually crank and rotate a lever connected to the side of the landing gear. More often than not, the landing gear isn't properly greased and you have to turn bright green and shred your clothing in order to get the trailer to move.

Can you imagine me outside of a huge warehouse at night, orange industrial light flooding the area, next to a trailer cursing and groaning like a powerlifter? Because that's what happens nearly every single time now

My favorite part is when I'm turning the landing gear lever, using all of my strength and weight to move it ever so slightly, and it just gives and I end up flipping over it landing on my back staring at the sky.

Also seems to happen too often. And always when another trucker is around.

Keep Reading.

Deep in the Heart of Texas (refrain)

Howdy.

And for the first time in a while, I can say "Howdy" and fit right in. This isn't the first time I've come to Texas, but I'd say it's been the most pleasant so far.

When I was with my first trainer, we made it out to Dallas a couple of times. I knew that there weren't going to be cowboys all over the place, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't look down at everyone's feet to see if they were wearing boots, maybe even spurs.

Everytime I make it to a different region of the country, I try to look for cultural differences, and seldom do I find the ones I'm looking for but occasionally I stumble upon more subtle ones.

A far as Texas goes, the only cultural difference I can think of is that they barbeque beef more than they do pork, which is way different than how things work in Alabama. That and they look better in their hats.

Anyhow.

I didn't make it as far as I would have liked after my last post, and I didn't make it anywhere close to Roswell by the time I had planned. On top of all of this, I ended up getting tired pretty quickly, and had to find a place to nap. I pulled over into a barren rest stop feeling exhausted and incredibly lonely for some reason. I'm sure it had something to do with being in the middle of the New Mexico desert for so many hundreds of miles without even seeing a town. It wouldn't have been nearly as bad if I had cellphone reception at the time, but it was like the entire state of New Mexico was a dead-zone. I fought the feelings of isolation and lonliness enough to fall asleep for about two hours.

I slept but I did not dream.

By the time I woke up, most of the sunlight had faded and it was time to drive a bit more. I inspected the truck briefly by flashlight, and was on my way. I drove for about another hundred miles before I called it quits for the night.

As I lay in the back of the truck I found myself again feeling incredibly lonely, the pain sharp once more. For some reason I heard my father's voice in my head talking about how when he was on the road, he used to talk into his tape recorder, and I ended up reaching for mine. I noticed that I had already recorded four different things that I had forgotten about, so I decided to listen. The first three files were brief messages to myself, reminders of sorts. The last file though, was a forty minute series of stories from the first part of my road training.

I realized how truly lonely I really was and how badly I wanted somebody to talk with, when I found comfort in hearing my own voice coming from a tape recorder.

I ended up falling asleep with the recorder in my hand.

______________________

I made it to Roswell in time for lunch. Aside from random alien crap here and there, not much to say about Roswell.

I have to wonder what aliens would have been doing anywhere New Mexico to begin with. It really is boring out there.

I made my delivery, and got my load assignment to head back home.

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I made it to Amarillo today, where I picked up and then decided to spend the day. The company is trying to manipulate my off-time, and as a result gave me four days to make a 950 mile drive. I can make 500 miles in one day, 1000 in two. If I got to Huntsville when they EXPECTED me to, I'd have two days off, but on the second one, I'd have to make the delivery to the final destination-- effectively cutting my off time. So, instead I've resolved to take as much time as I can to get to Huntsville so I can have two full days off instead of just part of two days. So once I picked up my load, I decided to find a steakhouse that is near-legendary, and one that I visited with my father when he was driving, fourteen years ago.

I wasn't even sure that my route took me past this steakhouse or not, but I didn't care I headed to it like a moth to a flame. I knew the general area of it, and with the aid of a couple of helpful texans on the CB radio, I found my mark.

The Big Texan is known for it's 72 oz steak which is completely free. *if eaten in one hour. As I walked in the door, part of me wanted to go for the challenge, but when I saw the steak in a display case, I quickly changed my mind.

The thing is literally the size of a pie.

When I walked into the main dining room, I noticed a raised table in the middle of the room where two men were seated, apparently taking the steak challenge (as I like to call it)

Of course I took their photo.

I got a table located conveniently near an electrical outlet so I could power the ole' laptop, and proceeded to order a feast for myself in celebration of the end of my first two weeks by myself on the road.

I ordered (and ate pretty much every bite):

a buffalo quesadilla

a 22 oz ribeye steak (cooked medium rare) with baked beans and a loaded bake potato

and a slice of cheesecake, covered with strawberries

plus some dinner rolls, and a few dr. pepper's of course

Obviously I don't eat like this all the time while I'm out here. Not only would it be insanely expensive, but also incredibly unhealthy haha.

My server was a charming girl named Kati (which I think I'm spelling correctly) who really made my day. She was dressed in pink and sold me on pretty much every course of the meal. I was originally going to choose BBQ as a main course, but she informed me that I was in a steakhouse so I should order accordingly. So I went with the ribeye, which I was going to have cooked medium, but thought twice about and changed to medium rare. Kati told me that was a good choice, haha.

Throughout the course of the meal, we chatted a bit about eachother. Nothing too in depth, but I found out she's in pre-law (if I remember correctly) and goes to school not far from Amarillo. She asked where I was from, and what brought me to Texas and I told her about trucking and why I was doing it.

It was nice to meet and talk to someone my age.

I asked her if I could take her picture to put on my blog, which I realized after I said it how strange it must have sounded, but she graciously obliged.

I left her a note thanking her for making me feel a little bit at home, and my blog address.

I'm not sure, but if you're reading this-- thank you.

After dinner I headed across the street to a truck stop and backed into a space (for the first time at a truck stop by myself!) and quickly headed inside for a well-deserved shower and an internet session.

Tomorrow I head east for 275 miles, which should put me somewhere in Oklahoma, I think.

Anyhow.

Keep Reading

Briefly

Hello from the New Mexico/ Colorado border. I'm heading to the southeastern corner of the state (New Mexico) to a place called Hobbs. I'm going to be delivering to a K-Mart, which before I got into trucking, I was sure did not exist anymore.

A comedian was talking about K-Mart once: "I've got some advice for you if you haven't been to a K-Mart before, and might like to see one. Hurry"

Ha.

Anyhow, I get to drive through Roswell NM on the way there, and I'm going to try to find a place to stop for the night. If I get the chance (which I should because I have plenty of time to get to Hobbs) and find a place to park I'm going to try to go to some sort of alien attraction.

I know they have them, I've seen the Sci-Fi channel.

Anyhow, after that I should be headed home for a few days which will bring my first two weeks of trucking to a close.

Keep Reading.

What-A-Burger

Photos from the What-A-Burger in Century, FL.

The signed hat, take out menue, and compass they gave me-- all of which are now in my truck.

Thank You my new friends.

Colorado-Bound or The Day I Got My Truck Stuck

8:48 AM 3/24/2008 Target Distribution Center, Pueblo Colorado-- Bobtail Lot

Let me first begin by saying how incredible the terrain is out here. I've never seen anything quite like this before. I drove 548 miles yesterday, most of it was within the Texas state lines. It's just like the movies out here. The ground is dry, yellowing, and has small dead-looking shrubs scattered about. I suspect that these are what eventually become tumbleweeds, which I didn't see at all. I saw for the first time in my life (at least in person) a wind-farm and windmills.

It's bizarre to be driving in near untouched territory and then come around a curve and see patches of gigantic windmills all over the place.

For some reason, it gave me the creeps.

Somehow, just across the New Mexico state line, the land changed. It went from flat, yellow, and almost diseased-looking to mountainous, green, and fertile. I really don't understand how an invisible state line could yield such a change, but it did. And then it got cold. It went from maybe sixty-ish to the mid-to-low-forties.

And I was still driving with the windows down.

I passed through New Mexico into Colorado quickly (I only drove 50-80 miles within NM) and then into the mountains. I'm fairly sure what I was driving in was not the Rockies, but they were certainly huge to me.

I felt like something of a Spanish explorer, seeing these things for the first time. At one point on the mountain, I looked down through the snow-dusted trees and saw an AmTrak passenger train snaking it's way through the area and it really solidified the fact that this was all totally foreign, but very amazing to me.

I ended up spending the night at a rest stop in Colorado City, about 35 miles away from Pueblo, CO which is my final destination.

So here I sit watching my breath pass by, waiting for my trailer to be unloaded.

Once I'm finished here, I am taking a strategically-placed 34 hour break to reset my hours for the week. I feel clever because Lauren is driving down from Denver to pick me up so I can spend my break in a new city, visiting with a good friend. It was all very spur of the moment, and just happened to fall into place at the last second.

Now, a story from a few days ago.

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This past Thursday I was driving through Louisiana on my way to Laredo when it was time to pull off the interstate to my fuel-stop in Lafayette. As I exited and made the turn onto the road where the truck stop I was supposed to fuel up at, I noticed two cop cars fly past me with their lights flashing. I looked ahead to where they had to have been going and it turned out that the truck stop I was assigned to fuel up at, was surrounded by HazMat teams, police, firefighters, and ambulances. For some unknown reason the entire place had been evacuated, and I definitely wasn't getting in. So I drove past it and began to look for a place to turn around. I had driven maybe 10 miles and was beginning to get impatient when I stumbled upon what looked like a perfect candidate for a turnaround.

I'm going to try to explain this as best as I can... I apologize if it doesn't translate well.

It was a dirt parking lot on the corner of a four-way intersection and looked completely doable. So I passed the intersection on my right, made my first right hand turn into the lot, and made my way to the exit. The light had turned red, so traffic in the lane I was going to turn into was slowing and stopping and it looked like nobody was going to let me out. A guy in a white Camry stopped before the exit of the lot so I made my turn. The cars had stacked up a bit at the light, so I didn't have room to completely turn into the lane, and was jutting out into oncoming traffic. So I cut back in hard to let traffic through, consequently making my turn very narrow. I saw in my right rearview mirrow that the back trailer wheels were in danger of falling into a small ditch if I didn't take the turn as wide as possible. I knew there was about a 50% chance that they were going to go into the ditch if I pulled forward, but backing up wasn't an option because I had traffic stopped already behind me. So I pulled forward slowly and the trailer wheels fell straight into the ditch. What I did not expect to happen, was the weight of the trailer to torque the tractor to the point of lifting the wheels off of the ground. I gave it gas, trying to pull the trailer out not knowing that my wheels were just spinning in the air. Once I saw I wasn't moving, I got out to survey the damage.

You can imagine my surprise and embarassment when I saw the situation. I was completely blocking one lane of traffic, and partially blocking the other (it was a two lane road). More than any of that though, I had a sinking feeling when I realized that the trailer (which had 45,000 lbs of weight in the back) was leaning so badly that it was only a few degrees from flipping the over.

Seeing part of your truck completely off of the ground is not a good thing.

And blocking two lanes of traffic on a two lane road wasn't cool either.

A cop who had been watching the whole thing from a car-wash across the street started walking over to me and I met him halfway in the now-blocked street. He was pretty pissed at first and asked me what I intended to do to fix the situation and I told him that I wasn't exactly sure how this was going to get fixed, but to give me a few minutes.

I got back into the truck and sent a message to the company through the computer letting them know that I was stuck, and to send help. I got a response saying that they were sending a truck-tow-truck.

Before I got into the trucking industry I wasn't ever sure that something like that existed.

During my training, we broke down in St. Louis and had to enlist the help of one, so I knew what to expect this time. I was curious to see exactly how the tow truck driver was going to approach this one though.

About thirty minutes after I sent the call for help to the company, I saw my tow truck approaching. It pulled into the parking lot and stopped with a great hiss of air and dust. A huge beast of a man climbed out of the truck wearing sunglasses and a name-patch on his shirt that said simply, "Big John-- Supervisor"

I knew it was serious when I saw that they sent out the big guns, haha.

He reached into the side of the truck and pulled out a set of massive chains which he dragged towards me, one in each hand. As he approached me menacingly he asked without looking at me,

"How much is in the trailer?"

"Forty-five" I responded, wondering if this man was going to kill me.

He proceeded to attach the chains to the back of the trailer and then move his truck into the street. He opened a compartment that was filled with levers, and pulled a red one which extended legs which were going to be used for stabilization from the truck to the ground. He walked around to the other side and did the same.

I stood back, and watched as somehow this man managed to completely lift my trailer out of the ditch and back into the street, using a mini-crane on the back of his truck.

The entire process lasted maybe twenty minutes. Once he was finished, I asked if he would let me take a picture of him. When I did this, his beastly exterior melted away as he looked down at him self fancifully and asked "In THESE clothes?" He reminded me of a girl. I smiled as he posed against the truck for the photo.

Moral of the story: take turns wide and you can never be sure who wants their picture taken.
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I'm Denver-bound, sans-truck.

Keep reading.