My Trucking Appetizer

Hi everyone! This isn't really a diary, just a wrap up of my trip with a friend to see how I liked trucking. I went from Birmingham to Houston and back twice this week with a friend that drives for Heritage, I realize it isn't much but it gave me a taste of what it's like on the road, and I LOVED it! I highly recommend doing this to anyone thinking about getting into truck driving if you have any way to make it happen. I learned quite a bit, for instance, I didn't know that exhaust fluid existed, just another example of "I didn't know what I didn't know". We were unable to get a spot at Love's (my buddy's truck stop of choice) on the first night so we parked on the street across from it. I was shocked at how much passing vehicles shake the truck. The next day I got to enjoy a shower at Love's, much nicer than I had expected, I was pleasantly surprised. The next trip we just parked outside of where we dropped the trailer, no traffic, much better night's sleep. We had trouble with the KW on the way home the next day. It started smoking, oil pressure kept dropping, fuel filter pressure kept rising. The boss said to stop and get the filters and oil changed even though they had been the previous week. They said it would be two hours before they could get started so the boss said drive it on to Birmingham if we could (we were in Baton Rouge), so we started toward home again. The potential breakdown allowed us to experience Baton Rouge rush hour/road construction traffic for about 3 hours, big fun. But we made it home. The truck was put in the shop yesterday and is supposed to be there until Sunday. All in all I'd say I got a decent taste of life on the road, plus I discovered that Love's tamales are pretty good. I did make a small mistake though. I came out of Love's not paying attention and headed toward the Heritage truck in front of me, not realizing until I pulling on the door handle that my buddy's Alabama "A" wasn't on the side of the truck. I was about to really surprise someone, and maybe get ventilated. I talked my buddy into being a team when I get my license and he called the owner and got it okayed, so I potentially already have a job and will get trained by a good friend, seems like a nice set up. As I end this novel, I'd like to say thank you to all of you who post here, whether posting questions or answers, it has all really been a huge help in me making the decision to do this. This appears to be one of the very few butt hole-free boards in existence. Thank you.