Day 20 -- Finally on the road!

Greetings from somewhere in north-central Nevada!  Yes, faithful few, i'm actually off and running down the highway.  My trainer picked me up in Salt Lake City at about 11:30 am today, and with little time for goodbyes, we hotfooted it out of the yard and on our way to Sacramento, California.  Next stop after that, 3,000 miles to New Jersey!

Turns out my fears about an overbearing, obnoxious trainer were entirely unfounded.  His name is Fabrice, but he goes by Mike -- go figure. He is of mixed nationality, as his father was French and his mother Haitian.  He speaks English, French, Spanish, Creole, and Portuguese.  His accent is a little hard to understand, but i'm sure i'll get used to it.  His English is good.  He has been training Phase 1 drivers (that's what i am) for eight years, and describes himself as very patient with student drivers.  I couldn't have been more pleased to hear that!

An unexpected wrinkle is that Fabrice/Mike has a second student with him who he picked up in Indiana, so it appears that our truck will be more crowded than i thought.  The other student is also named Mike, but just Mike.  He's a former welder from Kentucky who graduated England's truck school about a week ahead of me.

I haven't driven yet, and don't expect to until tomorrow morning.  England's policy is that students not drive between the hours of 1-4 am, as this is the time when most accidents happen.  Mike-just-Mike drove from Salt Lake City and continues to drive now.  He'll go until his 10-hour shift is up, and then Fabrice/Mike will take over for the night shift.  I will then take over for the first day shift tomorrow.  So for now i'm making a little small talk, but not much (don't want to be overbearing), working on the computer and listening to music on the ipod.  Probably will try to rest in a couple of hours.  And yes, we sleep in bunks on the truck (there are two) while one of us drives.

The weather has been nice, except for a small snow flurry leaving Utah.  I'm REALLY looking forward to seeing the entire country this way, as the only times i have travelled out of Oregon has been by plane (for the most part).  Being on the ground and seeing the terrain first hand is going to be pretty cool.

Lots of time to spend thinking.  No one on the truck is overly chatty, so i'll have plenty of time to identify, examine and polish my own thoughts.  Wonder what i'll find?  In my "old life" (as i will call my time working professionally up until truck driving school), there was rarely time for self-reflection.  Every minute was consumed by work, kids, socializing and other home responsibilities (i mention the latter item loosely, as i'm sure certain persons close to me will confirm that i was a bit lax in this area over the past couple years).  Ok let's be honest, it was work, kids and socializing, with the biggest emphasis on socilaizing....:-)  And consequently not much time was spent looking at the old man in the mirror and examining what i was doing and why i was doing it; really thinking things through.  What a gift to be able to do that now.

The compensation ain't much -- i get paid about $63 per day.  I'll be making that wage throughout my Phase 1 and 2 training, all of which will take about three months.   So....  i'm making about $1,900 per month, gross, for three months.  After my training is done i will begin making a rate per mile, which i think is about $0.23.  The amount of money you make becomes a direct function of how much you hustle out there and how many miles you cover.  By most accounts, solo drivers make between $40-70,000 per year.

The interesting thing is that trainer drivers (my Fabrice/Mike) make double that, and almost all of them in excess of $100,000.  So you can really do well if you cover a lot of miles as a trainer.  That may be a route to consider.

Looking forward to reporting how tomorrow goes.

Stay safe....

KWA