I belatedly realized that yesterday was my second anniversary in the trucking business. On December 1, 2006 I found myself in a small Kenworth T-600 truck with a stranger named Rich in Joplin, Missouri and the weather was atrocious. It was snowing and plenty icy, and as we made our way out to California with a heavy load of boxes we saw dozens of cars and four big rigs off the road in various positions. It was so bad he drove all the way to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma before the weather cleared up enough to let the new kid try driving.
After two weeks of adventure, and just under 7,500 miles of driving, I got my first truck assigned to me at CFI's Lancaster, Texas yard. Here is a picture of both of our trucks, with Rich standing next to his:
Where he is standing covers up his front fender, which ordinarily looks like this:
Each star represents a year of service with the company.
For one reason or another, I was Rich's last student driver and last I heard he drives over the entire 48 states instead of mostly the southwest region he used to.
Happy trails, man.
