5 1/2 Years

$38,000.  That's how much I had saved after my first year of trucking, working as a company driver for Schneider.  Many drivers like to share or talk about their earnings their first year.  Mileage is another popular topic of conversation.  I honestly don't know how much I made, gross or net, after my first year.  Didn't record the mileage, either.  Neither seemed too important to me.  The only thing I really cared about was how much I was saving.  This is what was going to get me home, back to my wife.  Looking back at my initial entry in this blog, I'm not sure, or rather, didn't share the plan my wife and I agreed upon with regard to my returning to the U.S. to drive a big truck, and how that plan was going to allow us to remain in Ecuador and retire at a very early age.  Much sooner than expected, actually, considering if we'd kept the restaurant we would have been working well into our 60s.  

Our plan was this:  I go back to the States, enter a truck driving school and earn my CDL, get a truck driving job, save everything, invest those savings, and retire and live off the investments, making this happen in 5-7 years.  The investments would be three $100k investments, each or the average of each yielding no less than $600/month, which would be more than enough to cover our living expenses here in Ecuador plus allow savings for vacations or trips plus emergency expenses, such as the replacement of appliances as needed.  *Brief side note:  it has always amused me when retirees here speak of 'going on vacation' when they go on cruises, or return to the States or whereever they're from, etc... ... as I see it, if you're retired, you're on permanent vacation.  Every day's a vacation or holiday.  What exactly are you taking a vacation from?  Our investments would be a mix of financial and real estate.  We overshot a bit on investment #1, when purchasing our first property to rent, but it was one of those unicorns, a rare deal on a condominium that we simply could not pass on.  It's a phenomenal condo, one that after seeing with my own eyes led me to tell my wife that when I returned home from driving, we were going to move in to that unit and rent out our current home. 

I'd eventually change my mind on that, as our home,

while it may not have the balconies or awesome

design that the newer condo has, does feature amazing

views of mountains and the valley, and rainbows.

Yes, rainbows.  We can see a whole lotta sky from our windows, affording us spectacular sunsets, a few nice sunrises, and lots and lots of rainbows!  

NOT a rainbow, or a sunset, but nonetheless
a very cool sight!

 

Our first investment, the 'unicorn' condo, was such a fabulous purchase that when we went to register the sale with the notary, the notary hesitated an awkwardly uncomfortable amount of time before approving the sale, as the city's assessed value and the sale price were in such disparity.  I say we 'overshot' on the investment because we spent considerably more than $100k on the property, but our return is equal to the purchase; the value of the condo is more than $200k, and the rent we're getting from its occupant is significantly more than $600/month.  Investment #2 became a CD we purchased in a bank here, one of if not the largest bank in South America offering an insanely high % on our CD.  Our 3rd investment isn't really complete... it started out as another condo we purchased with the intent of renting it out, but after buying decided it would be best put to use as a studio for my wife, who has become an extremely accomplished artist (more on that later).  To offset its overhead, my wife has been selling artwork and teaching art classes out of it.  We did purchase another CD in a different bank here, one that was offering another crazy good % on our investment, which is allowing us to continue to earn some savings or fun money, just not as much as we'd planned.  I don't know how the banks here are able to offer such a high rate of return on their CDs... allz I'll say is it's worked out really well for us.  

That's my wife.

This post was initially going to be about my transition after my first year driving from Schneider, into another avenue of trucking, but it morphed into a summary of our investments, which allowed me to return home after five-and-a-half years of driving.  My goal when I started driving was to accomplish this feat in 5-7 years; getting it done in five-and-a-half wasn't easy... I missed out on many of the perks other drivers enjoy by not taking any time off or allowing myself too much fun, but the payoff has been more than worth it.  I'm now sitting at home, where I get to spend every day with my wife, for the rest of our lives.  This is what I worked and saved for.  

My wife & I enjoying an afternoon
 coffee at a rooftop café

Favorite morning pastime:  coffee with Popa & Cuchuflí on my lap!

Big trucks & the trucking lifestyle.

Writing in an earlier post, I made reference to a "big truck."  To be clear, truck drivers refer to 18-wheelers as "big trucks."  If we see a jacked-up 4X4 pick-up on the road that's got a 3-ft lift on it, towering over all the other cars & trucks on the road, it's still just a truck to us, or in other verbiage, a "four-wheeler."  ALL cars and trucks and assorted vehicles on the road that have only four or six wheels are all lumped into the same category:  four-wheelers.  I always wondered how those guys with the lifted trucks, blowing black diesel exhaust, outfitted with giant knobby tires, would feel knowing that we considered them no different than, say, a Ford Festiva or SmartCar.         

  +  =  same thing.

Another reference I made in my previous post was to the trucking lifestyle.  There are, however, truck driving jobs to which this does not apply.  Local truck driving jobs, for example, do not really apply: jobs where drivers clock in, drive for the day, clock out, and go home.  The lifestyle I'm referring to is that of the truck driver who goes out over-the-road (OTR) for 3-5 days at a minimum.  Regional truck driving jobs will typically have you out for a week and home for the weekend or for several days; traditional OTR jobs entail the driver leaving home for two-to-four weeks before getting several days off.  These types of trucking jobs, regional and OTR, are where you encounter the lifestyle of truck driving.  

This lifestyle is about driving your truck hundreds or thousands of miles away from home, or in some cases, like mine, using your truck as your home, while utilizing all of the available conveniences and opportunities you can find to maintain good hygiene, good health, and everything else that a 'normal' life might encompass.  

I was very fortunate in that I drove for the mega-carrier Schneider.  Schneider has operation centers (OCs) and truck parking sites all over the country.  All of the OCs I encountered had showers while most had free laundry machines as well as cafés or well-stocked vending areas.  The parking sites I used were just that:  lots available for truck parking only with zero amenities, but often could be found located near a truck stop where showers and food were readily available.  My top two priorities were showers and laundry, and I rarely fell behind in either.  Priority #3 would be groceries.  A huge benefit of working for Schneider was that at many of their OCs, Schneider had a company car that could be signed out and used for grocery shopping or running some other short errand.  The excursion did need to be quick:  there was a one-hour time limit which did not leave for dilly-dallying.  In lieu of relying on a company car that wasn't always readily available, I would, en route to a delivery, stop at a WalMart that were often conveniently located at exits along the interstates.  

Two other sources for showers included the obvious... truck stops, and the other and much less obvious:  tank washes, a resource unique to me as a tanker driver.  The truck stop chain I frequented 99.9% of my time was the Flying J/Pilot Travel Centers; their company gave my company discounts on fuel, and I felt they were the most trucker-friendly as well.  In fact, when I first began driving for Schneider, when I received my company fuel card, I received a Flying J/Pilot Rewards card as well.  Because I got so much fuel there and used their rewards program, my showers were free, and I often had accumulated enough points to use their laundry machines at no charge as well.  Some of these Flying J/Pilot truck stops greeted the drivers better than others; here's a few examples of how some went above-and-beyond by dressing up the shower room for truck drivers:

Lamar, CO

It's amazing how much small gestures like these made life easier living on the road.  I should have done a better job of remembering where I took these photos; the only truck stop I can say for sure that did this on a consistent basis was the Pilot in Lamar, CO, which has at this point terminated its relationship with the Pilot/Flying J Corporation and is now either a T/A Express or simply known as "Lamar Travel Center."

Driving tankers, after every delivery I needed to return my dirty, empty tanker trailer to a tank wash to be cleaned.  The tank washes I frequented were always a great resource for parking; amenities varied from tank wash-to-tank wash.   Most of these tank washes, like our OCs, were conveniently located all over the country, and had showers that were available to the truck drivers.  Some had free laundry machines.  A few had well-equipped drivers' lounges with comfortable sofas and chairs, big screen TVs, and microwaves.  And as you might imagine, the quality of said amenities varied greatly, especially with regard to the showers.  The only shower which was totally out-of-the-question that I ran into was at the Quala tank wash in Chattanooga, TN.  It was so bad the staff there didn't even want to let me in to see it.  An above-par shower could be found at the Quala in Neenah, WI, where towels were provided.  Most fell somewhere in-between.  Towels weren't usually part of the bargain, but I was just happy to have a place to bathe.  With hot water.  

Three tank washes that stuck out include the Qualas in Vancouver, WA, Walnut, CA, and the Kankakee Tank Wash in Kankakee, IL.  The Vancouver Quala featured showers and free laundry, had amazingly friendly staff (which usually begins with the facility manager), was walking distance to a Fred Meyers grocery store (upscale Kroger) and an exceptional pizza restaurant, and near a fitness trail that was good for a 5k run.  Their parking lot was also 100% paved; this was a huge plus during inclement weather.  The Quala in Walnut, CA also had nice showers as well as a long fitness trail that ran for 15 or 20 miles in either direction.  The Kankakee Tank Wash was a real treat:  showers with plush towels, and sometimes meals.  Several of the tank washes would offer hot dogs to the drivers, but the Kankakee tank wash would have barbecue slow-cooked in a crock pot available.  Like I said before, it's the small things that go a long way. 

Kankakee Tank Wash

Kankakee

Reviving this blog and An Ode to Old School

 My-oh-my, time does fly.  When I started this blog, I had every intention of chronicling my time spent driving a big truck.  I figured I'd encounter many circumstances and experiences that would be worth sharing, and that this would be a good place to put it all down.  Well, I most certainly did have those experiences, but composing them here proved more difficult than I'd anticipated.  A gentleman I considered my mentor writes a blog, "Life as a Road Warrior," found here: http://lifeasaroadwarrior.blogspot.com.  He also has been a prolific contributor to the forum on another trucking website, Trucking Truth, which can be found here:  https://www.truckingtruth.com.  On the forum he is known as "Old School."  I mention him because when I began researching the whole truck driving thing way back in late 2016, I found the Trucking Truth site, which is phenomenal, and from there was led to his blog, "Life as a Road Warrior."  Old School, beginning with his very first post, teaches.  It was an amazing journey, reading his words of wisdom from his first post to his most recent.  I was in awe, that someone with zero experience in driving a big truck could impart so much insight and knowledge of the lifestyle.  

Not lost on me was the time Old School must have put into his writings, from adding to his blog to participating in the very busy forum of a popular trucking website.  He writes with eloquence and purpose; there are no wasted words, especially on the forum, where he has written thousands of responses to others' queries.  Everything he writes is incredibly well thought-out, drawn upon his own experiences and acumen.  I thought that in his former life, before he began driving a big truck, he must have been a pastor... all the pastors/ministers I have known were expert linguists and great communicators.  Turns out Mr. Old School had owned an electrical-manufacturing type of company, a large one, using big trucks to ship his products nationwide.  His background wasn't in public speaking... he was just an amazingly astute and articulate man.  The prevailing mystery to me is where in the heck did he find the time to do all that writing?  As a truck driver myself, I/we only had 10 hours, sometimes eight, from the time we stopped driving 'til the time we were able to start driving again.  In my case, it was always a 10-hr break.  Normally I would have already showered at some point during the day before stopping for the night, so I had 10 hours to wind down, make & eat dinner, sleep, wake up, and ready myself for the next day's work. On days I hadn't showered before stopping for the night, add the shower to the mix.  My point is I had no time, zero, to write in a blog, much less write in a blog while participating in a forum, answering questions and giving advice to would-be or new truck drivers... how the heck did Old School find the time?  I never asked him.  I suppose I will at some point.  

Now that I'm retired, I'm going to effort to share some of my experiences driving a big truck.  It's not going to be easy; my days are now filled with spending time with my wife, drinking coffee, riding my bikes, walking our dogs... all the while encountering new circumstances, the present drawing my attention away from the past.  I'll see how it goes.  As the love-fest with Old School has apparently drawn to an end here, I'll close with a few photos that I don't think he'll mind if I share... they were taken from his public photos shared on the website Trucking Truth.

The most well-known photo Old School is known for...

Doting grandfather.

Everyman's hero.

  

Meet Wanda Arlicious!

Wanda Arlicious… she’s my truck.

Mostly at my wife’s insistence, and to some extent my own amusement, I named my truck.

It was no easy task, let me tell you.  Hercules had an easier time taming the horses of Diomedes.  Like everything else I do, I overthought it by about six days.  It wasn’t on my radar as a crucial decision I needed to make, unlike choosing a CDL/truck driving school, trucking  company, or which type of truck I wanted to drive:  

    ⇦flatbed...

    ⇦dry van...







       ⇦reefer...

⇦tanker.  

The difference between dry van and reefer trucks is that ‘reefer’ refers to ‘refrigerated;’ see the box attached to the front of the trailer?  It’s a refrigeration unit that keeps the contents of the trailer cool or frozen.

…but at my wife’s insistence (insistence is such a nicer word than if I had said constant  nagging) I needed to come up with something.  And I knew she wasn’t going to let it go.  It’s sort of like when I’ve plopped down onto the bed at night before brushing my tooth:  she’ll start poking me while repeating “hey Pete, why don’t you go brush  

your teeth… poke-poke-poke- hey Pete, hey Pete, hey Pete, the Cavity Creeps are coming, poke-poke-  hey Pete, hey Pete… poke-poke-poke-  over and over and over again, until I get up and brush my damn teeth.  It can be quite maddening, but in a loving, hygienic way.  

She thought I should give the truck a female name, but what sort of  girl’s name do you give to a  behemoth that can pull 80,000lbs up a hill?  Olga?  Helga?  Bertha? 

And who, on God’s green earth, of non-German or -Eastern European descent would name the object of their affections Olga, Helga, or Bertha?

I knew I needed to get to know my truck first; did it have a personality?  What sorts of quirks were I going to find?  Over the course of several weeks I became familiar with my truck, learned its moods and idiosyncrasies, and the name just came to me.  Wanda Arlicious.

Arlicious Street is a road I passed while driving with an instructor during my time in Schneider’s bulk training program in southeastern Houston.  What a great name, Arlicious Street.  I had hoped it would fit, somehow.  To understand the name Wanda you need to be familiar with 1990’s pop culture… there was a short-lived variety show on the Fox network, In Living Color, that in my opinion far exceeded Saturday Night Live in its consistent hilarity.  This is where Jim Carrey honed his funnyman skills, as well as the entire Wayan clan along with Jamie Foxx, David Alan Grier, and Tommy Davidson, just to name a few.  Oh yeah, and a dancer on the show named Jennifer Lopez went on to sing a few songs and dabble in a few other ventures.  

Jamie Foxx as Wanda

In Living Color featured a recurring skit where Jamie Foxx played a character named Wanda; Wanda was a kind soul who just wanted to be loved.  She was constantly being set up on blind  dates by her friend, but the dates never panned out, or even lasted through dinner.  Maybe it was the up-turned lips, or the crazy eyes, or the thrift shop hoochie-mama skirts; Wanda had many flaws, but she had a good heart, she meant well, and she just wanted to take care of someone and be loved in return.  That’s my Wanda.  She’s  full of defects, and has a ton of issues.  Her body is scraped, dinged, dented, and gouged, her interior shelving units didn’t have shelves, her set of tire chains was incomplete, her seat won’t adjust backwards away from the pedals as far as it should, and her engine powers the truck up inclines slower than anything else on the road, but she too means no harm, and I get the feeling just wants to take care of me, so I treat her with equal amounts of respect and love. 

The a/c works great, keeps me chilled on 100° days and 80° nights, I acquired shelves for her interior, and her motor has not failed to get me up and over any hill yet, no matter the length or grade.  I keep her clean, full of fluids, and even carpeted her floor.  We seem to have a mutual admiration for each other, and I couldn’t be happier with any other truck.

Wanda's backside (left cheek)

Right cheek.

Jamie Foxx as Wanda

In Living Color's Wanda

Schneider Bulk Training, Weeks 3 & 4

Our time with the TE was supposed to last two weeks. Mine was considerably shorter; I got picked up Wednesday evening in Houston and dropped off eight days later at our operations center in Gary, IN. That time included the Memorial Day holiday, where we sat for several days due to lack of loads. I admit I had hoped to get a bit more experience driving with my trainer engineer. I was getting pretty nervous towards the end of the scheduled two-week TE phase, as I really didn’t have a very good handle on operating the Qualcomm with relation to the work assignments or logging hours, the paperwork we were responsible for completing and sending in, and had hoped we would encounter more challenging roads than the relatively flat Mid-West had to offer. 

During my time with my TE I did most of the driving, with him sitting, awake, in the passenger’s seat. There were a few times when I ran out of hours and once when we were heavy on our steer tires when he took over. We did one pump unload and one air unload ourselves, and the customer unloaded us the other times. And I will say, in real-world scenarios the unloads went very differently from how we were trained. It was all accomplished safely and efficiently, just different. 

I experienced my first truck stop shower, and was surprised how clean & dry it was… towels were provided… as nice as a hotel room shower. My TE had an EPU on his truck, so our cab was cold at night, without idling the engine. I slept as well in the truck as I have at home. We’d park with trucks all around us, and in the morning they’d be gone, and I never heard them. 

The TE phases ended early on a Thursday as my trainer engineer had previously requested time off, so I had 3 1/2 days to kill before beginning my final phase of training, a three-day review period where I’d get tested or reviewed on my abilities to unload a tanker using the pump and the air compressor, my proficiency at driving a tanker to include slow-maneuvering and backing, and some book knowledge and trip planning. This was a breeze, and I got the impression the instructor leading me through this process was struggling to find things to coach me on after 2 1/2 days. 

I spent the second half of Wednesday making travel arrangements to get to my newly assigned truck, which was sitting in Dallas, TX. The company initially offered to fly me from Gary, IN to Dallas, but I rejected that idea and opted for a rental car instead to drive down, as I’d acquired way too much gear to bring onto a plane. It was an easy drive, fueled by my excitement of meeting my first truck and beginning this career/lifestyle for which I’d been preparing for the previous seven months.

Schneider Bulk Training, Week 2

After spending two days on the unloads, we got our first opportunity to drive since we’d arrived. There’s a new law in TX that states before you’re allowed to drive a tanker, you have to be certified to drive a tanker, which is really back-azzwards because you obtain this ‘certification’ by pulling a dry-van. So we drove dry-vans for two days to re-familiarize ourselves with shifting and driving a big rig, before testing out and actually driving tankers. WOW!… what a difference. Driving dry-vans felt like being behind the wheel of a Cadillac compared to the tankers. Filled with water, as you might imagine the sloshing and the surge was everything it was hyped to be. The biggest surprise came on a slight downhill portion of the interstate, where the water felt like it was on my back, pushing me down the road. It’s something I’ve since become accustomed to, and have to be mindful of on long downhill stretches. The momentum of the surge can push the truck to speeds in excess of 75mph if you allow it. 

I had one instructor working with me beginning with the unloads through the end of training, and I enjoyed his sense of humor. He had names for the three tankers we were training with: “Sergio,” as in ‘surge-e-o,’ “Miss Wallbanger,” and the heaviest of the three, “The Godfather.” The Godfather beat me up the least, but when its surge did strike, if felt like a 50lb sledgehammer slamming into the back of my seat.

Me & Mr. Leo Williams, trainer extraordinaire

We drove the tankers the rest of the week, tested out in those, spent Saturday reviewing anything we felt deficient in, and preparing for the next phase of training, the two-week OTR phase with a trainer, or in Schneider-land, a ‘trainer engineer’ (TE).

Our four primary instructors.

Schneider Bulk Training, Week 1

I closed out my SAGE training diary with the successful acquisition of my CDL-A and words of thanks to those following my diary and offering their encouragement and support, especially G-Town and including Han Solo Cup, Brett, and Old School. I began my bulk training period with Schneider on schedule, beginning Monday May 8. Schneider’s bulk or tanker training last approximately 4 1/2 weeks, and right on schedule, my last day in training fell on the 31st day. 

The first day of bulk training, and when I say ‘bulk training,’ I mean chemicals, not food-grade… as a Schneider associate we are going to become “Chemical Unload Specialists;” The Big Orange does not haul food-grade products, but chemicals only, many of which are HAZMAT. The first day of bulk training weeded out half of the prospective trainees, mostly due to high blood pressure; on that 1st day experienced and inexperienced drivers alike all go through the same DOT physical process. After Day 1 my class of inexperienced drivers only lost two additional persons, one because of stupidity and the other due to bad knees (there is a fair amount of climbing on-and-off the top of the tankers, especially during training… in the real world not so much: most customers unload your trailer anyway and don’t allow you on top of the trailer while on their property… liability reasons). So climbing on top of your trailer often is limited to how thorough of a pre-trip or en-route inspection you want to perform. 

Pretty much the first week was spent in the classroom; we watched training videos and modules, saw some really amazing powerpoint presentations, signed up for employee benefits, received our fuel cards, and received a very large duffel bag with which to store all of the chemical gear we might be called upon to wear: a chemical suit, chemical boots, chemical gloves, respirator, FR coveralls, hard hat w/face shield, and an enormous pair of goggles. 

We ended the first week and began the second week with a much more hands-on approach, spending one day learning how to unload the contents of our trailer using the pump, and one day learning how to unload our trailer using the air compressor. That’s when the training really became fun for me. It’s one thing to observe a procedure while watching a video, it’s quite another actually doing it. With only three of us in the inexperienced group remaining, I had as many opportunities as I wanted to practice the unloads; I basically kept practicing until the end of the day arrived and I was encouraged to stop.

Me, Jimmie, & Jimmy... wearing our 'basic PPE:'  hard hat w/full face shield, steel-toe boots, long pants, long-sleeve shirts, and gloves.