Who can remember where you picked your first load up at after getting the keys to your own truck? I remember mine.

I left Pacific, WA and headed to the starbucks DC in Tacoma, WA. I picked up a load of beans heading toward L.A. and ended up dropping it in Portland. I have to say that was my most exciting time ever driving a truck. Here I was, after spending a month in truck school, then a month with my trainer, driving all alone with my music playing. I was ecstatic.

Where did you pick your first load up at?

 

For out of state trucking it was Red Wing Foods Streator IL going to Lortan VA and Sumter SC with Bloody Mary Mix. In state before I turned 21 was grain out of the loacal Elevator for 3 years to I lost track of all the barge and RR terminals.

 

I was given the keys to a tractor that should have been used for an artificial reef...then hooked a load on the yard.... it was long enough ago, I honestly can't remember where it went. Just that the PST yard in Atlanta was a "dump"....and I have pretty much blotted from my memory the 91 days I worked for them.... because after quitting there, I seriously considered doing anything BUT driving a truck. :shock: And yet, here years later... I am still at it. But pulling a tanker....and happy as a clam!! 8)

 

Thank you very much for a hearty laugh first thing this morning. My first load was a track-hoe on a lowboy from Denver to Vail, without a Jake Brake. I don't know how, but I made it. From there it all becomes a blur.

 

My first OTR load was a 're-power' from Nashville to Chattanooga for Monday morning. I had no idea what I was doing. I delivered just fine, then reloaded at the Coca-Cola plant in Chattanooga heading for Hollywood, FL.

 

Ambassador Steel in Comstock Park MI 48,000 lbs rebar to Marion Ohio

 

My very first load was a repower that I grabbed off the Swift yard in KC going to College Station, TX.

It was a load of ready to assemble office furniture for a new office building for the local cable company.

 

I was carried by another driver to Allentown Pa. to recover the truck that would become mine. Grabbed it from a repair shop, got sent over to some place next to the big Nestle plant over there for an empty trailer and then had to deadhead up 78 to new Jersey to some drink distributor(cant remember the name)...picked up a fresh load of gatorade that scaled out at about 78,000 pounds. i remember this trip as clear as anything else in my life. it was my first run all by myself. I had a terrible time finding the place driving by myself for the first time at night in the northeast...i got loaded really late, delivery time for Atlanta was like 8 hours away and i was in New Jersey. Also, this load was HEAVY and my training route had been an aoutomotive route that was never over about 10k in the trailer. I was lonely and scared to be perfectly honest. I got thrown to the wolves on my very first run from the time i was dropped off in nowhere Pa. into a previously broken down truck all the way to my first drop in Atlanta. I learned a lot of very valuable lessons on my very first run and i will always remember it. For to many reasons and stories to post it was the hardest lonliest trip i have had since i started driving. It all got easier as i learned and went...but I would have a hard believing that there are any drivers on here that dont remember that first trip. i know mine stands out.

 

My first trip was a haz-mat load of cleaning materials from Sturtevent,Wisconsin to Augusta,Maine. It was so I could run through my house to pick up my stuff.

Here's the bad things that happened....

1. I picked up the truck on the south side of Chicago and could not find a empty trailer, by the time I got one it was in the afternoon on a Friday. So I had to go through Chicago at the worst time to get up to Wisconsin. Get loaded and had to come right back through Chicago.

2. Stop at the first service plaza in Indiana and the next morning I lose my wallet while in the restroom. Get back to the truck and realize I don't have it. Go back inside and it's not where it would be. I checked around and finally found out somebody at McDonald's had it. Luckily nothing was lost.

3. After stopping by the house I asked my training fleet manager to recommend a route. She said to take I think route 9 from just north of Albany across Vermont, New Hampshire and into Maine. There may have been a couple other roads I took but I can't remember. Anyways, this was the WORST route to take. I spent most of the time going about 30 mph because the road was so curvy. It was terrible.

4. It was a total pain trying to find the customer. They had the worst location and I didn't have any directions.


6. Most of the trip was on the toll roads. I only had so much money and I could only advance so much off the trip. I was broke by the end. I spent like $150 in tolls.

7. My next trip picked up in Syracuse,NY. So even more toll money was needed. I definitely did not take the route back that I had just take, I went down and across Massachusetts.

Here's the good things that happened....

1. None. Zero. Nada.


There was more things that happened on my first trip but I can't really remember them that good. All I know it might have been the worst 2 days of my life, definitely the worst 2 days of my driving career. 8) 8)

 

My first solo run was a relay from Joplin to a HEB warehouse in San Marcos Texas. Everything went great till I got off the interstate and went about 1 mile to a T intersection. I had directions in hand that said turn left to customer. So I turn right, go into a residential type area. By time I relize I am a dumbass it is to late to back up. I go about a half mile and spot a apartment complex with a wide drive. try to swing around but lack about 2 feet of clearing the cars and now I have a whole road blocked on a curve at 3am and am in a almost full jackknife. I have to move it back and forth a few feet at a time but finally get turned around and make my first delivery.