I'm starting to lose track of days but today should be the big day, the day I drive the rig for real. But let me go back to Wednesday.
On Wednesday Joe and I were in limbo, so to speak because we were done with orientation and now we were just waiting to get assigned to our respective trainers. We decided to go take a look at the terminal and see what it had to offer. It's a nice place. It has a beauty shop, an arcade room, a game room with a couple of pool tables, an area with a number of recliners in front of a TV, a gym, a laundry room, and a store. There is also a machine to check your blood pressure; mine was up a bit but not bad (yesterday I checked again and my diastolic, the low number, was 77 but my pulse was 104! What was that about?). Anyway, we popped some clothes into a washer, went to eat breakfast at their cafeteria which I was told was "good" but I beg to differ, not good. They had your basic cafeteria fare; I had a bagel, melon, and tomato juice.
We were told to go by and meet our Student Driver Managers (SDM) so we could all put a face to our names so we did that and that was when Joe was assigned his trainer. He looked at me and stuck out his bottom lip in a pout. It was so cute but my world rocked at that moment. So he got the name of his trainer, Octavio, and we went back to the room to pack. It took about two hours for Octavio to get there and I had a good cry, actually a lot of them. I'm much more stable now but that was hard. It's been about fifteen years since I've been apart from Joe for any length of time and you just get used to things. But, like I said, I'm OK now. I walked out with him to the truck, took a peak, and then he was gone.
And then he called me a little while later and that brightened up my day. I didn't think I would be talking to him very much but he calls me frequently throughout the day so that's nice, too. I decided I needed to get some good food. I didn't want leftovers from restaurants, I wanted some real food. Before Joe had left, we dug up all our money and split it evenly between us. I promptly found a Whole Foods Market and spent the majority of my money there. Good going, Ali but now I had some vegetables to make a salad and some fruit and yoghurt to make a fruit salad in the morning. I tried to be wise about my spending but unfortunately I passed by a cart that had barbequed meats and since I trusted these meats were from animals fed a natural diet, I couldn't resist the smell, my mouth started watering and my feet got stuck and my mind got focused and the little good angel and the little bad devil started arguing and the devil won. I bought a small amount of each at ten dollars a pound! Oh, but did it taste sooooo good! It was worth it, though! But now I was basically broke and a bit worried because I wasn't sure where I was going to get some more cash. I certainly wasn't going to tell Joe I just blew my money. Oh, no, that wouldn't work at all.
I went to the room, put my groceries away, and decided to check out the lake. So I took my barbequed meat down there and my school stuff. I didn't think to bring a fork or a napkin though, stupid. So I ate with my fingers and tried to read but it was too windy. Trying to keep the pages down with barbeque sauce on my fingers was not working so I went back to the room. I decided to call my SDM and find out if he'd heard anything. Well, lo and behold, I too, now had a trainer. Yahoo! Her name I was told, was Dallia …and that's all I was told. Based on what happened with Joe, I figured I would be outta there in a couple of hours so I got everything packed up, fretted about what to do with my food cuz I didn't know if she had a fridge or any room in that fridge. And then I waited…and waited…and got pissed. What the hell? By the time I went to bed she still hadn't called.
The next day, Thursday, I went downstairs to get some new clothes to wear out of my duffle bag in the trunk, took a shower, ate my fruit salad, answered my emails, complained to my mom, Joe, my friends. Around 10am I decided to call my SDM and find out what was going on. He gave me Dallia's cell and I called her but all she told me was that her truck had been being repaired and she was on another phone call. I waited for her to call me back but after about another 4 hrs I called her again and she told me she would call me when she knew something. I didn't hear from her for the rest of the day.
I decided I needed to get some more food but not at Whole Foods. This time I went to Super Saver. I don't like those stores. It was a carbon copy of Food 4 Less in California that I would go to when I was poor. I couldn't even get my loaf of bread at this store but one thing I did appreciate…I got to buy a mangosteen. Apparently the store features exotic fruits, a different one every month. This month it was the mangosteen which I have never had an opportunity to even consider trying. I am glad I did. It was tasty, very sweet but didn't last too long and it cost me $2. I was going to get two but $4 for some fruit?
Friday, I just stayed in the room, worked on the computer, and waited. I decided that if I did not hear from her by Saturday morning I would call my SDM and ask for another trainer. I was thinking, "How rude not to just call and let me know what's going on." But then I would remind myself that I don't know her situation so I made myself be patient and calm. At 6:30 she called and asked me to meet her at the terminal by 8am. OK, now things were rolling.
Well, let's just say that first, we get along just fine and we even desire to eat the same kinds of foods, in other words, eat as healthy as possible given the lifestyle we have. I transferred my gear into her rather small cab and then we went to go pick up a trailer. Well, it was red-tagged and we couldn't take it. That meant they had to do something with the trailer but it should be ready around ten in the morning.
Sunday we get up and discover that we have a message on the Qualcomm informing us that we have had a new trailer to pick up since 4:30 that morning! What the heck? So we pick up this new trailer and now have a new destination, too; Grand Junction, Colorado. Yesterday was Helena, Montana. Finally we are actually on the road, yippee! Over the mountains we go. This is gonna be great! Well, I'd say about 10 miles out I start smelling some kinda smell you don't wanna smell when you're driving. And then, some lights on the dash started coming on but all of our gauges were showing normal. We drove maybe another 10 miles and the lights on the dash came on again but by the time Dallia could look they were out. Finally, one of them started blinking and I lost power and had to pull over. Dallia climbed into the driver's seat, turned the key on and off we went. She said she knew the drill by now about breaking down, that they would ask, "Did you try starting the engine?" Hmmm. So we drove to a rest stop and took a look to see if we could find a problem. Couldn't find anything wrong but did smell that smell by the catwalk area, behind the tractor. Off we went again, this time me driving…until lights started blinking and I didn't have any power again. I pulled over, Dallia took the driver's seat and we drove to the Petro truck stop in York, about 90 miles out of Omaha. According to what Werner could see by the Qualcomm, we were low on coolant. So we popped the hood but no, we weren't low on coolant. We had a mechanic take a look at things just to be sure but he couldn't find anything wrong either. So, here we sit. And now we just got word that we are going to be swapped out; someone is coming to get our trailer and we're to stay here to get the truck fixed tomorrow morning. Apparently there is a dealership across the way.
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