March 11, 2016
Six Months
Six Months….
We’ve been team over the road truck drivers for six months. Some days it feels like it was just yesterday we packed all our belongings up and left Colorado, and other days it seems as if we have been doing this for years! Either way we are still enjoying it immensely!
Things we’ve learned…..
We still get along fantastically and still have a great time with each other!
We don’t get to spend as much time with each other as we anticipated.
It is awesome to be able to earn a living doing something you really enjoy! It is true…it doesn’t feel like work.
Free time isn’t as plentiful as we thought….for exercise and fitness, keeping up with our social media tasks, and cooking in the truck.
This industry has got to be the one with the largest diversity of ethnicity.
The typical ‘old school’ truck driver is disappearing, sadly!
Parking – not as abundant as we first thought. Amazing at night, virtually no spots available. The truck stops, rest areas, on and off ramps are slammed full. It is amazing at the lack of adequate parking available…and there are still so many trucks that are not stopping. There are a lot of trucks driving across the U.S.!
CB – we could not drive without it! An invaluable tool, which we have upgraded from the Cobra 29 to the Galaxy 47HP. We have spoken with and sometimes even met the person we were chatting with that fit into the good people category! It is priceless for warnings and alternate route suggestions when traffic gets bad. Amazingly half or more of the trucks on the road do not have one. Those that do tend to be the genuine truck driver, the old school kind…whether it is by experience or by heart, either way they seem to be the ones that are proud of what they are doing and are truly invested in this industry.
Some of our goals….
Miles….how many can we get?!? We were told we could average 6000 a week. Well in the first
six months we have driven nearly 150,000 miles, down to the mile. I can’t give you an exact, because we are rolling down the road as I type.
States….to check off all that we can. We have been to and through 45 states. We are missing Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Alaska, and of course, Hawaii.
Visiting friends and family. This is probably one of the coolest things we have enjoyed about this adventure. We have gotten to spend time with family, spreading across North Carolina, Michigan, Florida, Colorado, and Nevada. Reconnect with friends we haven’t seen for 20+ years!
Seeing America! Little by little we are getting to play tourist. There are so many places still to see.
General thoughts….
We are always looking at what states we would like to live in someday, maybe. We have
crossed off 42 of the 45 we have been though. Some are too hot, some are too cold, some are too windy, and some have too many stupid drivers in them.
We have driven through all seasons and weather conditions. All levels of snow, rain, and wind. I still giggle at all the years I used to joke about training for Ice Road Truckers when driving the boys to school from Florissant to Colorado Springs throughout the winter. Generally we don’t mind driving in the winter conditions. However, add heavy wind to the icy roads….NOT FUN! We have driven in all temperatures…sub-zero to hundred plus, which doesn’t really bother us much in our temperature controlled environment.
We’ve adjusted quite well to sleeping while moving and not having a set schedule. Sometimes we even get to snuggle for a couple hours together! Some of the highways are so incredibly rough, which translates to lots of flopping in the bunk…sometimes so much that one catches air! Seriously!!
Future goals…
We want to get 300,000 miles in our first year.
We want to drive to/through 48 states, possibly 49, if we can get a load assignment to Alaska.
We want to update our social media sites more often.
We want to create more GoPro videos for our YouTube channel – Hooper and Whistle
We want to fit in more fitness and cooking in the truck.
We want to visit more friends and family!!
As we are writing this, it seems as if we could go on forever. There are so many things to share about all things we experience and come across. We will do our best to create more posts on a regular basis in the future.
Thanks for following and sharing in our adventure! We really enjoy all the comments! Be safe in all your travels!
Hooper and Whistle
