Sunday, January 18, 2015

Taking a Detour

The truck I drove the first month on the road.
So I started on-the-job training driving on Dec. 9th.  Since then I have crossed the country 7 times.  Generally the cargo is expedited freight,  going 300 or more miles, most of them over  1000.  Most of the time it is "drop and hook" which means we unhook from the trailer and pick up an empty one leaving the consignee to unload it at their leisure. 

In the driver's seat.
I completed a month of training and I will be going out another 2 weeks with another trainer.  I am staying in Cedar Rapids, near company headquarters while the company lines up a new trainer for me.  Hopefully I will be on the road again this week.  We are paid by the mile, not the hour.  Even after training the company has us drive in teams so one of us is driving while the other is sleeping.  This, however, is not conducive to making blog post.  I'll see what I can do along the way.

Early this January, I was drove all the way across Arizona and half way across New Mexico, driving east.  At sunset the moon rose and I was really enjoying cruising along in the moonlight with my CD's playing.  The road was clear but there was some snow on the desert so the moon lit up the landscape very nicely.  Click here for an album and I might keep adding to it since I can do that quickly on the road.