A Nomadic Lifestyle

One of the greatest difficulties, and the greatest pleasures of this job, is the simple fact that you are always on the move.  It's a conflicting statement, I realize, but perhaps only another truck driver would really understand.  The pleasures and joys of always moving and seeing new places, meeting new people, encountering new challenges, cresting new hills, enjoying the ever changing and ever new sunrises and sunsets are all dulled by the painful empty loneliness that is part of this job.  To have a wife whom you cherish and adore and children who you would give your last breath for and yet you really only get to talk to them on the phone for the most part.  Oh, I'm not wanting to come across as whining or complaining, I'm grateful to God for this provision He has provided for us, and I really do enjoy what I do.  But there is a loneliness to this job that takes a toll on a person.  Even when I feel like maybe I'll go ahead and eat inside a diner and maybe sit at the counter where I might have a conversation with someone on the next bar stool, it seems I'll end up with a nut case truck driver who is angry at the world, and a toothless waitress who insists on touching my arm every time she calls me "hon" or "sweetie".  It makes you cynical, and I don't like being that way.  I want to be warm and friendly with people, but it's hard when they are so fake with you.  I think these things are why I so enjoyed having Sarah and Esther ride with me when they did, it gave me a chance to have someone with me to be real with.  Of course, I have a Friend who is closer than a brother, who promised to never leave us or forsake us.  I'm getting way off track from the title I gave this post, but sometimes my thoughts flow in awkward directions when I get at this keyboard.

Okay, so I was thinking about the Nomadic nature of this job, and I think most people who have never encountered this type of work may not realize how much the average "over the road" truck driver moves around.  "I've been every where man" is a catchy line from a cute little song, but it really is true for a truck driver.  Here's a run down of my last two weeks worth of work:  I was in Aliquippa Pennsylvania and picked up a trailer pre-loaded with two aluminum coils for aluminum can production at one of our terminals there.  I delivered it the next day to Saratoga Springs in upstate New York.  From there I dead-headed (that's trucker speak for driving with an empty trailer) over to the lush green forests of Greenfield New Hampshire and got my trailer loaded with lumber.  While I was there I helped another driver from my company who was an older man who was having some trouble getting his tarps on his load.  He felt compelled to tell me his life's story of how he was a Navy Seal during the Viet Nam war and after that he worked for the CIA as a special agent.  Huh?  It seems that according to him the Government had to make him disappear, so now he is like a person in the witness protection program with no history or background that can be confirmed so that people who are in positions of power over in certain foreign countries can not find him.  Yeah, this is what I'm talking about when I say I would just enjoy a few moments with a person who seems like they might be for real every now and then.

I delivered my lumber load down in Glenwood, Arkansas where my parents lived for many years.  From there I went over to De Queen, Arkansas to "recover" one of the trailers that belongs to the company I work for.  Apparently another driver had an accident there and the trailer was at a repair shop and was ready to go.  So I had to get it loaded on top of my trailer and then take it to a customers yard in Calvert City, Kentucky where it will be loaded with a load of steel.  Take a look at this photo.  Can you see the trailer in the background that is being hoisted into the air by a couple of wreckers?  That's how we loaded it.  They lifted it up and I backed under it so they could set it down on my trailer.

Well, when I got to Calvert City I picked up a load of steel, and after spending the night in "Possum Trot" Kentucky, I rolled on over to Hammond Indiana to deliver it.  Then I picked up my next load in Porter Indiana which consisted of two steel coils headed to Portland, Tennessee.  After that I headed over to the Unarco Plant in Springfield, Tennessee and picked up a pre-loaded trailer of warehouse shelving, or racks, for stacking palletized goods on.  These I took to a brand new P & G distribution center in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania.  This is an interesting place for me as I have made several trips to this particular place already during the various construction phases.  I have delivered sections of concrete tilt wall, steel girders for the roof, metal roof decking, and now shelving for the inside of this monstrous building.  Here's a few views of my trip inside the warehouse and a shot of the shelving on my truck.

After that I went over to the JLG manufacturing facility right there in Shippensburg and picked up a big piece of equipment (a man lift for doing aerial work) and delivered it to Sunbelt Equipment Rental in Clarksville, Indiana.  Then I roared my way over to Shoals Indiana to grab a load of Sheetrock that went up to Madison Wisconsin.  From there I made my way down into a rock quarry in Eden Wisconsin to get a load of stones that were bound for Des Moines, Iowa.  Oh this was fun, I kind of felt like Fred Flintstone coming up out of that rock quarry loaded down with enough rocks to put my weight at just under 80,000 pounds.  I left there early in the morning with the sun struggling to shine it's light through the heavy cloud cover from the previous evenings thunder storms.

Then I headed over to Pella, Indiana to get these huge pulleys or rollers for a conveyor system that is in a copper mine over in Morenci, Arizona.  This is the load that I am currently under tonight.  I am spending the night in Deming, New Mexico, about 120 miles from my destination.  In the morning I will leave here about 4:30 a.m. and go over to the mine where they will unload these rollers and then load me with a load of copper that I will take to Norwich, Connecticut!  "I've been every where man!"

Well, there you have it, now maybe you understand a little better about just how much I move around across this great land to deliver the goods to the people who need them.  And just in case your thinking this all sounds like fun and games, just take a look at this pair of leather gloves that I just purchased three weeks ago.  Yeah, there is work involved in all this.