TRUCKING-ORIENTATION DAY

Orientation day went pretty well for Mike. I dropped him off at 8 a.m. and waited at the hotel until Jeremy and Ceili (my son and his girlfriend) came. We went to Seminole State Park and rented kayaks. We didn’t have a lot of time out there, but we had a lot of fun. It was probably a good thing that we didn’t have much more time because I definitely got a bit of a sunburn. Not complaining, though, because it felt so good to be back on a kayak out in the water again.

We went over to where Mike was doing his orientation, and he wasn’t quite finished yet. We hung out over there until they were done for the day, offloaded all his stuff from the Ram to put onboard the truck, and headed out to grab some dinner.

The original plan was for his truck to be assigned to him and for us to help him set it up; however, we ran into a little bit of an issue with the truck that was to be assigned to him. For whatever reason, it wasn’t available. The options were to go back home and wait a few days (not an option in our book), have Mike hang around here for a few days (also not an option in our book), or to take a different truck and be dispatched when it was ready. There was a bit of work that needed to be done on the different truck, and it needed to be cleaned up. We opted to do that and are currently waiting for that truck to be ready.

The trucking company has an on-site Penske repair shop, so that may make things a bit easier when repairs on the truck are needed. Right now, the refrigerator and microwave have been installed, and we are hoping that the truck will be released to him later this morning. We can then get all his stuff onboard and set up.

We shall see what today brings!

TRUCKING-LET THE ADVENTURE BEGIN!

If there is one thing I have learned about life, it is that it is always an adventure … if you’re doing it right anyway! My husband recently finished CDL school to become a tractor-trailer driver after 30+ years in the billboard industry. When he submitted his resume’ after receiving his CDL license, there was a flurry of responses from trucking companies … some worth considering and many not even worth reading about. In no time at all, he had found a company he was comfortable with pursuing options with, and we found ourselves heading to Bainbridge, Georgia for orientation and tractor-trailer set up for him to begin this new journey.

The first thing to deal with was knowing what and how much to pack for him to work and live in his tractor. Our Dodge Ram was PACKED TO THE RAFTERS literally, but it is hard to know what to bring and what to leave behind. We figured it was better to have too much than not enough, and we knew that I could always bring back what wasn’t needed or what couldn’t fit!

Today, as I write this, it is orientation day, and I am sitting in the hotel waiting for the arrival of my son and his girlfriend. We have plans to kayak at Seminole State Park together, help my husband set up his assigned tractor-trailer, and have a meal together before we all retreat to our “corners” — Jeremy and Ceili back to Tallahassee, my husband to his tractor, and me to the hotel.

Jeremy and Ceili have exciting news they want to tell us when we are all together tonight, and Mike and I are beginning our new lives … it is an exciting and an unknown day for us all in many ways.

I decided last night that, because this adventure will be so very different than anything we have done together before, it needed to be documented in a blog. Since I already had a website which I am in the process of revamping (more on that later), this was the perfect spot to begin documenting.

So, if you are here reading this, welcome to the next adventure in our lives. We have always felt that a moving target is harder to hit, and we will definitely be moving targets!