Preparing To Leave For CDL Training!

Made it into Salt Lake, City about 11:30am. Called the Swift shuttle van & got picked up (about 6 of us). We then headed to the Terminal to get checked in & receive our voucher for the hotel we would be staying at. We are be housed at this country club hotel. It's really nice! & yes we had to have a room mate. I got along with one of the older drivers on the bus rides here so we paired up. Out of the 6 of us I was the only young guy. The others were 40+ which nothing is wrong with that. They all seem cool & are ready to start this new journey as well. The hotel is located close to A lot of places within walking distance of about 2-3 minutes. Chili's, IHOP, Cracker Barrel, Chinese, laundry mats, fast foods, pretty much anything you need & everday after class they say they make a trip to Walmart so if you need to go then that would be the time to. We checked into our room then my room mate & I walked to the local grocery store & picked up a few things to snack on for the room. Neither of us drink alcohol but the shuttle bus driver for swift made it clear to all of us that NO alcohol is permitted period. After we ate, I showered & now I'm enjoying the Direct Tv they have in the room! How awesome is that!? DirecTv with all channels! Most hotels I've been too only had a tv with about 10 channels. Im watching Furious 7 then just relaxing & catch up on some rest I could not get while on the long bus ride. So far so good! Swift Terminal looked awesome by the way! The CR England guys did not look as happy as we did 😂😂 the guy at Swift also told us that sometimes after 3-4 days of training at CR England those guys call up Swift & try to transfer over here. Their terminal is located right up the street about 10 minutes from ours & he says it's been plenty times they have had to pick up guys from CR England & bring them on over to Swift! I'll keep you guys posted !

Hopefully if everything goes on schedule as planned I should be in Salt Lake City, Utah in about 5 hours. LONGEST RIDE EVER!! I'm definitely not doing this greyhound thing again. I'll gladly pay for a flight

Now you know why I was asking if there were any other transportation options available. I can say you are a better man than me because there is no way I would have made that bus trip. I would like to know what other options are available and how much they cost before I make that decision. They may even be willing to take it out of your check and not make you pay upfront. The good news though is that if you can survive 41 hours of waiting on the bus and layovers, then you should be able to survive pretty well in the trucking industry.

Hell yea! NEVER I repeat NEVER again!

Good luck Theron H

Thanks a lot!

Congrats on the safe ride to salt lake, cdl school should be a breeze for you. Keep that positive attitude going it is contagious! Good luck!

Keep your eye on the prize!

Now that you're there you are going to hear all kinds of B.S. Just remember what you're there for and take care of your own business. There will be plenty of quitters and losers in the process - hold your head high and be true to yourself.

Looking forward to hearing of your success.

Hehe I'll take your 41 hour bus journey and raise you a 56 hour train journey :P

I did that for my 1st year of AmeriCorps. Took amtrak from San Antonio, TX to Baltimore (BWI airport station specifically), MD. Not counting my voluntary stop in Birmingham (bought a multi stop ticket) for 2 days it took 56 hours to get there. Left San Antonio about 6:30am, got to Houston around noon, New Orleans around 9pm, then had to wait till 7am to catch next train to MD (well Birmingham in my case). Got to birmingham about 2:30pm, spent my 2 days there then caught it again at about 2:30pm, got delayed in NC because a freight train broke down in front of our train, got to dc around 12:10pm, about 3.5 hours late, missed my connection but caught another at 1pm to get to bwi about 2:30-3pm.

Now granted amtrak is much more comfy than greyhound it was still a long trip. even longer coming back via Chicago instead of NOLA

Hope your journey to SLC ends well.

so far my experience has been that the company will reimburse you the cost of gas at the rate of the greyhound ticket. so if you keep receipts and a greyhound ticket was worth $200, they'll reimburse up to $200, but if you spend more too bad.

Good morning everyone. I just woke up. About to brush my teeth & wash up, get dressed & then head downstairs to grab a quick breakfast (whatever the hotel offers). It's 4:45am the van will be here to pick us up at 5:30am. Ready to see what today brings! I'll keep you all updated.

Hehe I'll take your 41 hour bus journey and raise you a 56 hour train journey :P

I did that for my 1st year of AmeriCorps. Took amtrak from San Antonio, TX to Baltimore (BWI airport station specifically), MD. Not counting my voluntary stop in Birmingham (bought a multi stop ticket) for 2 days it took 56 hours to get there. Left San Antonio about 6:30am, got to Houston around noon, New Orleans around 9pm, then had to wait till 7am to catch next train to MD (well Birmingham in my case). Got to birmingham about 2:30pm, spent my 2 days there then caught it again at about 2:30pm, got delayed in NC because a freight train broke down in front of our train, got to dc around 12:10pm, about 3.5 hours late, missed my connection but caught another at 1pm to get to bwi about 2:30-3pm.

Now granted amtrak is much more comfy than greyhound it was still a long trip. even longer coming back via Chicago instead of NOLA

Hope your journey to SLC ends well.

so far my experience has been that the company will reimburse you the cost of gas at the rate of the greyhound ticket. so if you keep receipts and a greyhound ticket was worth $200, they'll reimburse up to $200, but if you spend more too bad.

Woooow that had to SUCK! That would have killed me lol. That's why I say next time either I'll drive myself or I'll definitely see about getting a plane ticket for sure

Theron, you are a good writer. Looking forward to your training experience. (Be sure to start a diary in the Training Diaries side.)