Yesterday Mark and I were officially hired as team drivers for Con-way Truckload. As we sit here in a motel room in Joplin, MO waiting to be assigned to our respective trainers, we've been reminiscing about the series of events that brought us to this day.
Let me begin by thanking (or is it blaming?) cousin Eddie Terry for planting the seed that ultimately resulted in us quitting our steady, if hum-drum jobs for the adventure of traveling around the country while someone else paid for the fuel. Eddie has happily been a team driver for Old Dominion for almost 2 years now. The more he and Mark talked on the phone, the more we began to consider making a change. That was March 2013. We were both miserable in our jobs and the youngest of the kids was due to graduate in May 2014. The time was right. We began saving and planning in earnest with a goal of leaving our jobs in March 2014 to begin 8 weeks of Truck Driving School. The idea was that we would finish school and be ready to embark on our new careers by the time Mark's youngest son was heading off to college. So far so good...and here we are. Vaguely wondering what we've gotten ourselves into and very excited at the prospect of finding out.
As part of our research over the last year plus, we have been following several blogs written by husband/wife teams. These are three of our favorites. Anne and Craig are owner-operators with Farm2Fleet; Randy and Irene are owner-operators with Con-way; Jon and Jade are a much younger couple who are company drivers for US Express. They all have great stories and have been a great inspiration to us.
http://betweenthegears.blogspot.com
http://anneandcraigleonard.com
http://jadeandjon.wordpress.com
We'll try to keep everyone posted and up to date on our travels and adventures.
And with that I'll close for today.