THIRD WEEK ON THE ROAD



We got to visit with Matt and Shari and Brooklyn and Taylor this week.  This is me and Taylor.




Brooklyn on the top bunk with her dog "pinkie winkie"



You can see how high the tractor ceiling  is in this shot.  Matt is 6' 4" and he has plenty of room.

Our big excitement this week was that our Trainer, Roy arranged for us to do a pick up close to Matt and Shari in New York as a surprise.  So we called Matt and they drove about 2 hours and came to where we were picking up a load of peanut butter. We got to show them inside of the truck.  "Big Red".  Matt said it was good that Brooklyn got to see the inside of the truck because she couldn't quite grasp how we lived in the truck.  She thought we lived in the trailer.  Now she understands.  We went to Denny's and visited for about 2 hours.  It was so nice seeing all the family.

On our way home we saw a convoy of military vehicles and a helicopter escorting a semi transporting something of high security.  There was about 20 armored cars with guns mounted on the top.  I wonder what was in that trailer???

We also saw a bad accident involving two semi trucks.  They shut down I 80 east to clean that one up.  I think what happened was one truck ran into the back of the other one very hard and fast.  It looked like a explosion.

We got a call from our driving trainer Bart this week.  He monitors all the events of the truck from the home base at England in Salt Lake.   I got a call that went something like this.... BART: Dena we have monitored your speed and in a three week period you have violated the speed limit 57 times.  DENA: Wow is that a new record?  BART: No DENA: oops I was told that the company policy is to drive 5 miles under the posted speed limit.  BART: Not for trainees it's 60 mph.  We just want you to be safe.  DENA: OK I will slow it down to 60.  Randy got the same call but Bart lost connection with Randy.  The bottom line is we can't drive over 60 mps while in training.  Bummer in a big truck like that it feels like you can get out and run faster than the truck is moving.

Next week is our last run with our trainer.  We have been so blessed to have the trainer we have.  We will test again after our final run then if/when we pass we will be given a company truck to drive for the next 2 months on our own.  They will probally put a governer on the truck which regulates the speed.  Untill next week..............