I guess if you're going to have to learn to deal with things not quite going to plan, you might as well get it out of the way on day one.
I met up with my trainer a little before noon and before I knew it, I was behind the wheel headed to a FedEx facility to drop off an empty trailer and pick up a load headed to Henderson, Colorado. Yeah, that didn't happen.
Neither of us had been to this facility before so we had to get some direction and before long I was pulling the empty trailer into a bay to be inspected for damage before dropping it on the yard and I managed to get it through without hitting anything. So far, so good.
Then things came to a grinding halt. My trainer ran in to get the paperwork for the load we were picking up and found out that it wouldn't be ready until 4am. It was about 1pm. Ouch. But I still got my first backing experience in the real world.
Before even starting, my trainer and I got out and discussed the plan on how to get it done and thankfully how he would perform the maneuver is exactly how I was trained and feel comfortable so I went for it. It wasn't the fastest parking job ever but I still got it right in between the other two trailers without hitting anything and only pulled up twice which is perfectly acceptable!
From there we had nothing to do for over twelve hours so we decided to just head to a truck stop for the night. It also gave us time to do laundry, shower and stuff like that so it wasn't all bad.
I also spent awhile just watching other drivers park their trucks using the same maneuver that I had to do and while most were clearly very skilled, a few struggled and I hate to say it but it did make me feel good that I pulled off something similar and was more efficient with less pull ups. Now I'll probably do something stupid tomorrow for thinking that way. Whether they put it right in or struggled a little, I still learned a bit from each one by watching the little things they did differently. Some things I don't ever want to do but I still benefited from paying attention to how the trailer reacted to everything they did.
Thanks to this delay I was also able to get some early lessons in how things work on the road too. For instance I learned that you're going to pay about five bucks to do your laundry every time and if you think that's expensive, showers are generally between ten and fifteen dollars! That's if you aren't a member of the truck stops rewards program though. Every time you buy fifty or more gallons at Loves for instance, you get a free shower. If you buy enough fuel each month then you get one free shower every day! I made sure to get a rewards card and sign up for that!
Hopefully tomorrow doesn't have any hiccups like that and we get on our way for real. I'm ready to leave the Dallas area! From here we are scheduled to head on up to Colorado followed by Kansas and then hauling a load all the way to LA. Looks like I may get my first butt puckering mountain decent out of the way really soon. I'm sure that will be a fun update about how long it took me to clean my britches when it's done!
Overall it wasn't the day I was expecting or hoping for but I'm on my way, got some experience and still learned a few things that I need to know!
FYI, truck stop showers aren't too bad so far!