Why on earth would a fifty-something, nicely brought-up mother suddenly decide to go trucking?

It was a great question and, like the majority of good questions it had answers both easy and complex. From ‘it sounds like fun’ through ‘it’s a normal immigrant job’ via ‘well, earn more money in a truck than I can using a Master’s degree’ with a detour along ‘I’ve driven ambulances and stretch limos, if I want to get bigger it’s either a truck or even plane and this course is cheaper’…none of these reasons quite encapsulated everything.

And these were merely the rationalisations for just a much vaguer pull towards the massive beasties that I’d been enjoying watching while driving since emigrating from the UK to Canada. There seemed to be no rationalisation needless to say for the other vague pull, a lifelong obsession with doing things merely because they are just a little strange.

Adding to my list of excuses that it appeared to be a terrific angle for a book on trucking assisted a bit when explaining to those who have no imagination, although not much.

In fact, I hadn’t expected panic when I breezed into Tri-County Truck Driver Training one afternoon in 2008. I merely desired to understand what it took to become a lady trucker. I wanted to discover the United States, how hard might it be?

As expected there is a tiny distinction between studying to handle a 75-foot, slow-moving guided missile and dreaming aboutreceiving payment to see the continent; and actually earning a living. Spending 14 hours each day smelling of diesel. My first job was taking trailers full of mail from East to West. Team driving across Canada’s endless prairies and through The Rockies, and sometimes getting lucky enough to return home via Texas. That Lake Effect Winter Storm was just one of our countless weather-related narrow squeaks. North American trucking can be quite the adventure.

I’ve been almost arrested in Baltimore, sick as a dog in Tennessee, terrified in Chicago, Dallas and Detroit and dug out of the snow twice within a night in Alberta. I’ve made buddies in Virginia and foes here at home. And, given half a chance, I’d probably forget about how impossibly tiring it is and head out again to take 18 wheels over the horizon.

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