Friday, April 30, 2021

United States of America

 A few of the State lines I crossed for your perusal! 

Utah rest area.

Carlos was nice enough to suggest this. I’d thought of it but didn’t wanna be too forward. I pencilled the idea for when I’m alone on the road in my own truck. 

When he offered to take the pics, I wasn’t gonna say no. It was generous of him. The picture below was the first one he took of me. It was also my first time in Colorado. 

Welcome to Colorful Colorado!

I totally recommend a drive through Colorado. It’s such a beautiful one! I don’t necessarily recommend driving a truck through Colorado in winter. If you’ve done this route before, you know exactly what I’m talking about! 

Indiana 
I believe Indiana is in the Midwest. This is an FYI that may not quite be useful cos I’m not too sure how factual it is. 


Not a state line, obvi

I woke up in the middle of the night needing to use the restroom. Carlos was driving. We were headed to North East. That’s the New York state region. Seeing us crossing Connecticut state on the GPS was a little nostalgic. I hadn’t been to Connecticut since I lived there. If you dig through, you will find blogs about my experiences there. I was fresh off the boat from South Africa. You. Can imagine the memories that flushed through my mind as We passed through. The above picture was taken in a restroom in New York. I was like man, I’m  really cross country trucking! (Even though I wasn’t technically the one doing the driving!). We also drove through New Jersey. Even if just a bit. I did live there for a couple of months as well, back on the day. 


Feeling Peachy in Georgia

It must be from all the reality TV shows I’ve been watching, but I was extra excited to set foot in Georgia… The state not the country! I’ve Already been to the country, still waiting for my T-shirt. Insert eye roll emoji here. 

AZ. 

St. Louis

Oklahoma 

Nevada / California border 

I parked right across the border and ran from California to Nevada to take the following picture. 

NV



Talk to you later. 

@BabalwaBrook on all social
Write me at 
P. O. Box 4502
Ontario
CA
91761
USA





Wednesday, April 28, 2021

Talk to you never!

Week three into training was very challenging. I may have been partially responsible for this! I have this thing at the back of my mind, that, when sharing space with someone; it’s all good for the first two weeks. Come week 3 and the tail pops right out of where they had been hiding it and you get to see their true colors. I might be wrong! Maybe it’s week 4 or year 7. This was my experience in my time of having roommates. 

This is not my house, nor his, it’s a freaking tiny truck  I better suck it up, butter cup! It was hard though. No pun! I got tired of the permanent whispers on the phone 24/7 between Carlos, My trainer and his wife, doing all the driving, while he parks at Walmart and buys more food, when it’s his turn, all the little things! We were still getting along. I just was sick of the situation. 

 One night, Carlos was driving, I was asleep. My routine was to wake up more than an hour before start and shower  we would, obviously use separate showers. He would hang out in the truck shop after showering; I think he would be having breakfast. I would go straight back to the truck and have my breakfast, then, pre-trip inspection, preselect music, and drive. When my ten hours or so on duty was up, We would switch after I did my post- trip inspection of the truck. 

I drove daytime as I mentioned before. He drove nights - but I would almost always wake up to the truck parked and everybody sleeping, so, there’s that. 

One night, I was asleep and woke up on the side of the freeway! Don’t freak out! I was still in the sleeper berth of the truck, just, we were stopped on the side of the freeway. Carlos was outside. We had orange cones next to our truck like breakdown situation. “What happened?” Tire explosion! 

Looking at the tire, I couldn’t even tell you how that must’ve happened. You’re probably smarter than me and have already figured it out. In which case, Bravo! It was much darker outside than it seems in these photos. 

  

Luckily, nothing weird happened to the rest of the truck. I mean, I didn’t even realize what had happened. I slept right through it. Hopefully Carlos didn’t!

He waited for help while I went back to sleep. I needed my sleep. I’m the one doing most of the driving, plus he was on the phone... as usual. 

Speaking of accidents and tire situations; I had one of my own! 

One morning, I remember waking up in Oklahoma. We were in a random truck stop, in a fuel spot  (I forget the name). Carlos was snacking on something delicious as usual, insert drooling emoji! He asked if I wanted to drive us to a truck stop with a shower. I wasn’t trying to say no in any learning opportunity as I was there to learn. This was not the norm. I was still in my night gown. I’m not sure what possessed him to make me drive braless in a night gown. It was such a weird predicament. I was half asleep. I miscalculated a turn and ended up hitting a random cement pillar with the back tires. All I heard was an explosion. That woke me up! 

He freaked out! I didn’t. Delayed reaction, remember? I sometimes have to fake being upset when something happens and it’s my fault. I feel bad that the other person affected may think I don’t care. So, of course! I went ahead and put my hands over my head: OH MY GOSH! Oh nooo! I’m so sorry! I was sorry! I didn’t feel bad but I was not upset. It happens. I’ll be upset later or the following day! 

That’s the damage caused to the rim


That wasn’t the time to point fingers about being made to drive half asleep in my nightgown. I put on decent clothing and called for help. We sat there for two to three hours. I wish he’d just let me sleep longer. 

Eating deez nuts while waiting for mechanic. Press play!

While waiting for help, I went inside the convenience store to get hot water.

Maybe the tire explosion didn’t wake me up cos this happened:

Don’t try this at home! It burns like a mofo

Mofo is Short for mother fcker. You’re welcome! (I think!) i sat there and burned like heck while this think was shriveling  in my hand (no pun intended). The guy was nice enough to offer me a foam cup. Much smarter than Our trucker in training here!

En route back to California , it’s the last week of my training. It was only a few days before I hit my total number of training hours. When I did the math, I realized that I’d still be in Texas when that happened. Both Carlos and I live in California. He had a Vegas tripped planned for after my training. At first, I was nervous that that was going to infringe upon my training time. But now that I was almost done, I was ready to head back. He was chilling. I overheard him talk to dispatch about how he didn’t mind another load that would take us out out of the way. He was in no rush. Well, I was! I wanted to get the heck out of that truck! Go take a bath in my apartment, sleep in my California king... and with him! Just be home, man! 

I researched what my options were. Apparently, I would have had to start over with my training if I wanted to get out of that truck AFTER my training. Go figure that sht out and make it make sense! If you don’t like your trainer, you’re allowed to quit, good luck finding one that you like. There have been stories of mentors who shut the curtain and poop while you’re sitting in the driver’s seat, driving.  Imagine that sht! Pun intended! Just so you know, there are no toilets inside semi trucks! 

There have been other versions of weirdnesses as well. I hit the jackpot when it comes to that. Carlos had a nice personality, he liked to shower, he even wore cologne. He really wore that cologne one time we were in Denver, Colorado. We arrived in the evening. He told me he had friends from high school that he wanted to catch up with. Carlos is in his late forties. But I get it. I have contact with my high school people and I’m not that much younger than him. He really made himself nice! He looked better than when his wife came over. While he was gone, I looked at my map app, saw that there was a Walmart a mile away, and I walked there. 1mile=1.6km. I bought things I had no business eating, like buns and M & M chocolate slaps. I think I also bought a Cadbury’s slab. Those are hard to resist because I grew up on Cadbury and they don’t always have it here in the States. They never have my favorite, Top Deck. I settle for Dairy milk. I don’t know when Carlos came back because between eating myself to a comma and the walk, I was nice and relaxed. 

I must say, it was nice to be home alone for a change. That was the second time. The first was when we were in California and he spent the night at hime with his lovely wife. He took his laundry with him that night. 

I sucked it up, buttercupped some more until we got back to Cali. I was due to be tested on what I learned during training. We’re supposed to do no less than 40 backs while out there. I hope I did. Carlos had a notepad where be was ‘recording’ everything. Except, not really! He started to try to remember everything while we were back at the company base. I was amazed! What was this guy doing all along? He wasn’t driving, so! 

Any who, They scheduled me for the test the following day. Carlos had promised to take me to the spot where we would be tested to reverse and let me practice a few times. After he finished fake remembering what we did on the road, he ran right out of that thing as if be heard another tire explosion. He screamed for me to lock the truck and text him where I left the key. I was shooken! This is how we part ways? Where’s my practice run? 

I took my sht, which stayed in suitcases anyways. Story of my life.  I placed the key somewhere safe, sent Carlos a text; blocked Carlos and left! See ya mutha trucker!

@BabalwaBrook on all social
Write me at 
P. O. Box 4502
Ontario
CA
91761
USA







Sunday, April 25, 2021

How We Met... Sike!

Two weeks into riding with my truck driving trainer, we went to this giant truck stop, Lord knows where. We were going to take a break and shower there. It was in the middle of the day, probably noon-ish. I browsed around, quickly for an open space or 3 side by side, for my amateur self to park. I found one where there were two side by side spots. I pulled up to set up, got out of the truck to double check all around my truck. Carlos freaked the freak out! He asked me where I learned how to set up like that? I literally set up the same way I’d been setting up since I started with him. It was so surprising to me that he saw something different about what I did. I was completely thrown off! 

When I told him that that’s how he taught me to set up, he completely denied it and told me he wouldn’t have asked me if he’d seen me do that before. He was very frustrated by the whole thing, I could tell! I wanted to fix the problem but how? This is what we’ve been doing for two weeks. He’d complimented me on how improved I was on backing, based on the set up I was using. This was doing a number on my confidence on this person, and everything he’d taught me!  I can’t stand inconsistent people! I can’t stand people who do one thing and then deny it. Imagine being in school and then halfway through it, being told everything you knew was false? Did you just waste half your training? What the eff?

Anywho, I set it up how he wanted to do me this time around. He was telling me how the way I did it was fine too but it was for well experienced people. That’s how HE does it but it doesn’t mean I should do it the same way. What the actual fck was going on here? Dude was freaking out over something that’s not wrong. That he himself does. He wonders where I could’ve learned it. Could it be he taught me? Long story short, If I was a countdown to the end of training before, i was Really was doing it now. 

Cut to, one time we were going to be driving to Southern California. This was exciting cos we did most of our driving far from home. I was looking forward to the chance of perhaps bumping into my boo thang; Derrick. I told D that we were going to be Cali side. He was going to be in the desert, camping with his group of friends. 

Lo and beFreaking Hold, turns out our route was going to pass by where they were. I called him: no answer. Left him a message s to why I called. I told him I could pull into a gas station if he wanted to come say hi. I was so excited by this spontaneous opportunity. Derrick not only didn’t pick up the phone, he didn’t text back either. It wasn’t until my mentor sympathized with me that I got sad over this. I wondered if there’s  something about this relationship that I keep missing. People seem to have similar reaction towards this Derrick guy’s actions  towards me and I seem to be bothered s much as outside people. Am I the fool here?  

We went on to meet up Carlos’ wife who did show up. So, now, ure really getting to see what it’s like when people love each other. They show up, haha. I laugh because, oh well!

We parked at this giant Flying J, one of the national truck stop chains. They have a Denny’s restaurant and other spots. I’d met wifey before, remember Day One? I’ve now heard all kinds of stories about their relationship dynamics. It was interesting to see her under that light. Also, I was about to spend more time with her than before. She invited me to have breakfast with them at Denny’s. That was nice. I had a cobb salad and tea. They sat right across from me, he was being lovey dovey...  Having heard his version of how they met, I thought it’d be interesting to hear hers. She told me that she had received random emails from dating sites who offered free happy hour membership. Her friend told her to join. She was going to be able to chat with guys for free during the happy hour window. She wasn’t looking as she was in a relationship the time. 

She joined for the heck of it. Carlos had told me they met pn a truck driver’s dating site. The wife is considering being a truck driver, so she wanted someone on the same path to date (no pun). She told me that she started getting messages from truck drivers for some weird reason. She didn’t know why this was as she hadn’t joined a truck driver specific site. This was all news to Carlos. He was like: wait! So you weren’t ont he same truck driver’s site I was on? 
She: no! For what?
He: I thought you joined it because you wanna become a trucker? Why did you think One of my first messages to you was about trucking?
She: It was?
He: I asked you if you had a CDL? (CDL stands for Commercial Driver License)
She: I had no idea what that was! I thought you meant California Driver License!
     Listen! They don’t serve popcorn at Denny’s! This sht was movie material. I’d my own opinions about this relationship/ marriage based on the stories I heard. To be front row, viewing this mess first hand, was quite something! These people got married based on how they met and how they met was a pure misunderstanding. He thought she has plans to become a trucker. She doesn’t! He’s even told me she will join him on the road, to which I said: no offense but my gut feeling tells me she won’t! I mean, sorry!

The conversation ended up back on a normal footing, we ate, I took my  leftovers with me, they paid. Very nice of them. Back on the Truck, back on the road again!

Destination: Eastbound!

I heard back from Derrick. He told me he was backing, moving things into and out of truck and Camper. They were heading back home that morning. At that point, it didn’t really matter what was going on. The boat had been missed. Or the truck. I wasn’t mad. I think he didn’t want to go out of his way to go say hi. I can’t prove it, so I let it go. Also, he might have had to tell his friends who he was going to greet and nobody knew Of my existence. In my opinion. Derrick also told me that even if he hadn’t missed my calls, he wasn’t going to be able to haul an entire pick up truck and camper to meet me. Except, I was hauling an even bigger vehicle and trailer so, mh kay dude. This was not my ball and chain, the love of my life. That kind of thing stung a little but it wasn’t devastating. If any of this makes sense to ya. 


@BabalwaBrook on all social
Write me at 
P. O. Box 4502
Ontario
CA
91761
USA