King of the Road

As some of you know one of my Walter Mitty desires or one of the things on my “Bucket List” has been to drive a big rig at least temporally. I had the opportunity at the beginning of the summer to be a relief driver for a contract mail route between Phoenix and Payson, but I did not have my class A CDL license. Neil Silvey the driver was driving seven days a week an encouraged me to upgrade my license and he would have me drive 2-3days a week.

By the time I got my license upgraded his relief driver had returned from her job in Colorado and Neil felt bad that he had encouraged me to do something that did not work out. I told him I would still like to ride along on the route to see how it went as something might come up later. Neil readily agreed and told me he would even give me some driving time.

On the morning of the forth of July{ the mail must go through} was my first time behind the wheel .Neil met me at the QT where he stops for his morning coffee on the way from Phoenix. Each truck has its own personality which is perhaps most manifest through its gear shift. This Volvo tractor has ten forward gears. After first gear you can shift it with or without the clutch. It is somewhat like learning to play and tune a new musical instrument all at the same time. I made it out of the QT parking lot and up to the first stop light. At this point I mistook forth for ninth gear and stalled the truck part way into the intersection. Not an impressive start. I made it thought the next three lights on green and by the time we are at the Verde River it is open highway to Payson.

At this point Neil tells me to get into it as we have to be in Payson before 8 a.m. Inasmuch as Neil has never even seen me drive a pickup truck and has only heard from me that I can drive a forty foot school bus I thought this was a bit brave of him. This truck is speed controlled at 70 mph and he wanted it moving close to that speed. I had been hopping for a bit more leisurely first run but I obliged Neil and put it down. It was a good thing this was a divided highway as we passed of good number of cars and trucks. I got a quick baptism into 400 hp, a forty-eight foot trailer and 70 mph on a mountain road.

When we got to Payson at 7:45 a.m. I assumed Neil would want to take it into the post office as we had a serious u-turns and a backup into the dock. He merely said, “You remember how I did it”. As the back of the trailer touched the dock I was feeling pretty good about myself.

How did I feel about being” King of the Road”? Actually it was a little disappointing. The expectations were greater than the reality. I guess I had seen too many episodes of Ice Roads Truckers and Trick My Truck. I was expecting a bigger adrenaline rush. Can’t wait to do it again. EB.