When Bob switched jobs from being a car mechanic to a diesel mechanic MANY years ago I could not wait to learn to drive a truck. There was a mixture of oil field trucks and over the road trucks to pick from. I learned on the older Mack's and I found I enjoyed driving for fun when I could fill in as a driver. This happened enough to keep me wanting more but I still never had thoughts of going over the road.
As our youngest daughter was starting to look at colleges all of the sudden our future looked bleak. We wanted more then going to work every day looking out the same window at the same scenery. Even with us searching to find ourselves I was still not ready for the idea of going trucking full time. Quit our relatively secure jobs, retirement plan, home every night, vacation time, oh and health insurance? I think not.
Morton County Courthouse - Going away party
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Bob did not give up and since I am a researcher I started researching what all it would take to make this lifestyle change. We flew to Dallas and attended GATS and I handed out resumes to potential trucking companies... All I can say is the recruiters were rather shocked when I handed them a resume. We learned that even though both of us had a Class A license with all of the endorsements we were still going to have to go to school, as we did not have the logbook experience.
Well we made plans for Bob to go to school, go with a trainer and then he would become my trainer. All went according to plan with ONE great big exception the traffic and the trailer scared me to death... I was used to water trailers, great windows, no sleeper, and dirt roads.... I looked in that side mirror and the trailer went on forever and ever and ever. No way did I want to drive something longer then our home in cities and bumper-to-bumper traffic. We also had another problem that really haunted us, as we became recluses. I know that I would go weeks where I only talked to family and Bob. When we were able to find Internet using an old system called Park -N-View I only had time to catch up with emails from friends. In no time I was going brain dead and getting bored with no challenges to keep my brain going and I wanted OUT OF TRUCKING. Bob who was doing all of the driving was not having a lot of fun either with a bored wife riding with him.
So we started a lawn care business and left trucking without looking back... Well the lawn care business did very well BUT we were missing the road and decided we needed to give it another try but this time we were going to do it different. I had to drive and I knew it. In my search I found Expediters Online and my eyes lit up and I knew this was something I could get excited about.
We spent every spare minute researching EO, taking notes and finally attending the Expedite Expo that was then held in Detroit. We talked to everyone and this time we decided it was time to buy our own truck. Talk about pressure... my first time driving our truck was on the way to orientation and it was fantastic. We had found our niche and we also knew we were not going to make the same mistake we did the first time. We were not going to become recluses.