Never-ending Winter

This past week almost made me think that winter was over. Almost the entire trip was relatively warm (it was mostly in the 'teens to mid 30's) and we didn't get any snow or ice....until we hit Montana coming home on Saturday. Oh well, maybe winter is almost over then.
The week was fairly uneventful, although I did break my old record for miles driven in a day. Last week I topped off at 616, but this past week I did 619 miles. May not seem like much of an increase, but at least I did a little better.

It's been 4 weeks that I have been out now, and in that time I have learned lots of things and gained a lot of confidence in driving these things. I have of course learned better how to drive the thing, but my favorite things I have learned are new phrases from other truck drivers. My two favorite are “Uglier than a one-eyed opossum”, used to refer to someone who is extremely ugly. The other phrase is “Slicker than greased owl shit”, used to describe road conditions that were slippery.

One other thing that I have learned is how to drive in a car around semi-trucks, and I feel it is my duty to pass on this information along to you. First of all I want to dispel a myth. If you are on either side of a truck, we can see you. I know you are told that we have blind spots along the sides, but we don't. We tell you that because we don't want you next to us, and so that when we turn on our turn signals you panic and give us space because you think we can't see you. Which is my first piece of advice, don't hang out on the side of a truck if at all possible. I know if there is heavy traffic it can't be helped, but most other times it can be. This is for you safety, because it can sometimes be difficult to keep that trailer exactly in our lane, especially in wind (even if it is wind that you don't feel in your car). As for the turn signal, if you see it on, please give us room, either move ahead of us (quickly) or back off. Trucks are generally not swerving in and out of traffic, so if we have our turn signal on it is usually for a good reason, so help us out. Also, to help us out, if you see one of us merging on the freeway, and you are able to, kindly move over to the next lane, or if appropriate speed up. We need a lot of room to merge, and it will take us a while to get up to speed, so give us some space. While I am mentioning speed, when it is off the freeway, driving in towns and such, just keep in mind, we are slow. We speed up slow (I have to go up 5 gears just to get to 25 MPH) and we stop slow, so just be patient. If you are stuck behind a truck and he takes off from a light slowly, he's not doing it to piss you off, he's doing it because of gravity, so just chill out. I could go on, but I think you probably get the idea.
Love you all, and only 3 weeks left until I'm on my own!