drive a semi-truck

-Drive a car… obviously (and a motorcycle)
-Drove a the high speed Thalys passenger train in France (under supervision)
-Have over 30 hours logged in 3 different types of GA aircraft

Now all we need is a truck… could be a ladder truck… or a nice Peter Built.

the feeling, the smell, the thrill, the excitement of semi trucks. I LOVE trucks!

I spent the summer after my 21st birthday fulfilling this life goal. I spent several weeks learning how to drive cab-over Freightliners under the blazing rural Indiana sun. I hung out with a guy from Baton Rouge whose future was in hauling hogs. That summer I drove all over New England and the mid-Atlantic with my co-driver, Tom, getting into all kinds of trouble along the way. I was up way too late one night driving the New York State Thruway and I started to hallucinate images of a man hanging off the side of the trailer. We somehow escaped the lot lizards in New Jersey, cruised by the view of Monadnock Mountain at least once a week, and tried to avoid everyone in the hammer-down lane revved up on coke and speeders.

I stopped driving when my company stuck me in an old, tired truck with a Super-10 transmission and I proceeded to stall it out every hour from Baltimore to New York. My nerves were so shot after that, I slept for a week when I got home.

I had not successfully learned stick-shift before I got behind the wheel of one of these behemoths, but now I’m a pro in my own little Jeep. The respect you’ll learn for the road and the power behind 80,000 pounds makes this worth it.

My dad was a truck driver. I’ve always wanted to see the country and couldn’t afford to travel. The combination resulted in the most logical choice. I talked to my dad, and he loaned me half the money to go to trucking school.
In some ways it was harder that I thought, and in some ways it was easier. I’ve been driving long haul for three years now, and the money has been good. I’ve been to every state except Maine and Alaska.
-Drawbacks = you are tied to your truck, responsible for your load, and often on a tight deadline. It makes sightseeing difficult.

I bought a large sailboat a couple of years ao that I knew I would need to put on a trailer to do the repairs. So I went out and got a Class A license. I went to a truck driving school to do it. It took me 2 days. The first day was learning this little speech you have to give that shows you know all the parts of the truck to inspect before each trip. That takes most people a week, but I had worked as a diesel mechanic in college so I already knew most of it.

I spent the rest of the 1st day driving around the parking lot. Backing up a trailer took much longer than I expected. After 5 hours of mastering that, the rest of the testing points were really easy.

The next day was the first time I ever drove on the road and we drove straight to the testing center. I flubbed up my first shot at the test where you have to parallel park the trailer, but I got it on the second time through. Total cost for 2 days of school: $450

2 months later I bought a semi tractor for $4500 with get this: 1,200,000 miles on it! Do the math on that… it took someone 12 years of their life all day every day to put that many miles on a truck. A couple months after that I drove from California to Kansas to pick up a trailer that I bought. A little bit of welding and it was ready for the boat. Drove the Boat from Berkely to San Luis Obispo and now I have now been working on the boat, but is still not in the water yet. Soon I hope… see my goals :)

I think driving a semi-truck would be incredibly exhilarating. Though I don’t want to be a career truck driver, I want to learn how to manouver a giant rig and successfully shift gears to cruise down the highway for a short period of time.