Motion

The lifestyle of a trucker is about a strange addiction to motion. They will all tell you it's about the money, and to some extent that is true, but it's mostly about the need to not sit still. This really is not so much a job as it is a lifestyle. And, I have to admit, it gets in your blood a bit if you let it. I don't sit still as well as I used to.


We started this past week on Sunday afternoon sitting across the roadway from Mount Shasta. Yes, really, just about right across the street, in a rest area, from Mount Shasta. Then, down to Modesto and LA. From there we took a  load to Laredo and then back North to Chicago. Next was Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and here I sit on a Sunday morning, a week later, in Memphis. Oddly enough, the only bad time of the week was the day we sat around in Laredo waiting to have the front end aligned and take care of a couple of "recall' items on the truck. We sat and sat, and there were no roses to smell at the Freightliner dealership.


But, as I said, the motion is the addictive part. During the day, the motion speaks for itself. There really is an amazing sight outside of our windows most of the time, even if we've seen it before several times. During the day you get this sense of rushing along through the country (or city) side at 65 miles an hour. You can see the effects of the wind, and feel whether the sun is in front of you or behind you. Everything along the way is punctuated by buildings or trees or mountains or rivers, and you can tell when you've gone a mile or ten miles just by the difference in the view. 


At night it is a different story. Night is more like playing a fairly intense little video game. After a 3-4-5 or 6 hour run, it begins to feel as though you are no longer moving (maybe just jiggling about some), and everything is rushing at and by you. There is no distance, unless you are in or near a city, and there is no real change of scenery. Every little town begins to look like the last one, or the next one, and is made up of Golden Arches, signs with arrows telling you which way things go or turn, signs for Applebee's or Perkins, a hospital or High School, or a waffle house of some sort if you are in the South. Little strip malls are little strip malls, and rest areas are all filled with the same trucks as the last rest area. It's a much tougher time of day to drive long distance.

The one true upside to night driving is the stars. We get to stop in some pretty dark places, and the stars can get intense. 

So, this is about enough sitting around for the moment. Time to head back over to Fedex and pick up a load for Huntington, WV. Who knows for sure where to from there; I guess it really doesn't matter as long as it's somewhere else. A week from today I'll wake up in my own bed in New Philadelphia, Ohio, and it will really feel strange not to be moving.