Day 8 -- Improvement

Good evening all.  Picture on the left is the "backing range" at the CR England facility in Salt Lake City, UT.  It's where we've spent the last two days (including all day today -- Saturday) and where we will spend all day tomorrow. These are only two of the nine trucks that my class used for backing practice.  The picture was snapped in between snow flurries (it was too wet to stick).

Thankfully, today was more successful for me than yesterday.  I finally was able to figure out the three maneuvers we are going to be tested on tomorrow.  The three maneuvers are: 1) a straight-line back, where you back a truck/trailer in a straight line for about 50 yards within a 12-foot wide lane.  You can't touch the lane lines.  2) parallel park the same truck/trailer. 3) Perform the "offset" parking maneuver i described yesterday.

We have to perform the three tests tomorrow with only a limited number of mistakes.  If we don't pass, we could theoretically be sent home (although they apparently do work with you to try to work out problems).  So needless to say, there's a fair amount of stress that most of us are carrying right now.  Some of the better drivers in our class tested today, but most of us kept practicing in the snow.  We're all pretty wet, sore and tired from today.

On Monday we work on learning to shift the gears, and then it's out on the road for real-world driving.

My roommates have been cycled in and out.  People are here at this facility for a whole variety of reasons -- it's not just students.  There's also regular CR England drivers here for random drug tests, disciplinary reasons, people buying/leasing trucks and countless other reasons.  It appears that the students are just a small percentage of the people who are here.

One of my first (and favorite) roommates was "Joe from Mexico".  About my age who was here to pick up a new truck.  He was hilarious, but also had a violent snoring problem.  It was the worst i've ever heard!  But apparently he said "I" am the only other person who has actually woken HIM up with snoring!  So i guess Nicole has legitimately had something to complain about.....:-)   I felt sorry for our other two roommates, who had to suffer through our snoring duels.  LOL.

Doing laundry right now for the first time since i got here.  Shhh, don't tell anyone, but i actually wore dirty socks today because i hadn't had time to get down to the laundry room.  I think i'll need to buy a couple more pairs before i actually hit the road in a truck.  And yes, i DID bring extra pairs of underwear, so THEY were clean.

Anyway, time to get a snack.

Stay safe....

KWA