Solo on the road

Last week I completed my 'upgrade' and was assigned a truck to drive solo. From a quality of life point of view, this is a much better way to 'run'. The Department of Transportation limits our driving hours to no more than eleven, separated by ten hours of off-duty time. Since I don't usually sleep ten hours, that leaves me two or three hours of time to do something inbetween driving stretches.

Also, we have fourteen hour stretches to complete those eleven hours of driving, meaning we could have as much as three hours a day of additional off-duty time while waiting for loads or unloads, or breaks during long driving stretches. What this all boils down to is at least a few hours every twenty four that are my own, not England's.

Lots of drivers never leave their trucks and have set up their cabs with all sorts of entertainment devices - DVD players and flat screens, satellite TV dishes and receivers, X-boxes, etc. Consequently you'll see truck stops and highway rest stops populated by cabs glowing from the light of LCDs until late in the night.

I can't imagine a more pathetic existence. As long as I'm driving around the US, I'm going to experience the US. To that end, I now have a folding bicycle on-board. A friend loaned me this bike for about a month as a test, but I'm already sold.

Over the last few days I've used the bike everyday the temperature was above 28 degrees (it was a cold morning in Battle Mountain, Nevada). In Santa Nella Village, CA. In Paso Robles, CA. In Needles, CA. And now in the City of Industry, CA from where I'm writing this in a Starbucks two miles from my delivery point while I'm waiting for my scheduled unload time to arrive. I now find myself trying to schedule my sleep spots in towns where there might be something worth biking to visit. Add in some golf clubs and I'm all set.

Photos to come later.