No Regrets
Two weeks ago I quit my job without any real notice. Since then, I often wonder if I made the right choice. The job I took is totally not something I pictured myself doing and it was a spur of the moment decision to start driving trucks and see the country.
I was right!
Though I may feel bad about the abruptness of my departure, I know myself and after sixteen years in a dead-end job that I felt sucking the life out of me every day, I was complacent; if I didn’t leave like I did, I may have been talked out of it. The new job pays more and is a lot of fun, with opportunities to see things I never knew existed. A good friend of mine has been working for the company for about the last year and told me what all I needed to do to get in (which wasn’t really that extensive).
I’m writing this from just outside Jacksonville, Florida but in the last two weeks, I have driven 4,500 miles or so and it’s been AWESOME!!! I deliver delivery trucks for a mid-sized driveaway company. I had never heard of “driveaway” before, but basically I drive a delivery truck to wherever the client wants it and then I fly home (or however I want to get home). The pay is decent and the deductions are even better. Thus far I have been to Brooklyn twice, Los Angeles once, and now I am almost to Jacksonville in a Waffle House next to the truck stop my truck is in.
Brooklyn Trip 1.
While driving, I was nervous as hell. My friend was my trainer and we drove with very little deviation from our planned route. Most of Indiana and Ohio were rather boring traveling across the Toll Road. Pennsylvania was gorgeous! The rolling hills, the friendly people, the scenery were all great. At the East end of Pennsylvania the mountains get a little bigger, but not as bad as what the South has to offer, which gave me no real problems. New Jersey might as well not have a speed limit and then crossing into NYC was…busy. Yeah…rush hour in a delivery truck is not as much fun as it sounds. My friend drove first and I followed. I was still getting used to the truck, but it wasn’t as big of a deal as I thought it would be. We drove into Queens on our way to Brooklyn and I saw the most vibrant sea of humanity I have seen in my life. I drove through a Moroccan bazar…complete with Moroccans (they may not have actually been from Morocco). We hit this one area that had Arabic music, little tents set up on both sides of the road, people crossing over from one side to the other while ignoring traffic, and the pungent smell of Middle Eastern spices in the are. It was heaven. People were haggling over the price of cloth and garments and others were just walking around eating. We made our delivery and hopped on the subway which took us to the Jamaica part of Queens. The area had a large Hispanic population and I heard crimes against whites in this area is the highest rate in the city. With that, at no point did I feel unsafe or like anyone was going to take my stuff while here. We went to eat lunch at Delicias Caleñas, which offers Latin American food, not just the standard Mexican food we all love. After lunch, we took a train and then a bus to the airport for me to do another first in my life…fly commercial. I have never flown in a jet before and till then, wasn’t 100% sure that they really worked. After a long drive, I was exhausted and so was my friend. We boarded the plane and I sat down, strapped in, and gripped the arm rests tight. Then I took a nap while we waited for takeoff, which then went all the way through takeoff. I recall hearing the pilot say something over the PA and I woke up during the takeoff with a queasy feeling in my stomach and I was plastered back in my seat. With this, I felt the motion of the plane and wanted to freak out…then I fell back asleep. That part may have lasted 30-seconds. My friend even commented, “Wow, Beebe, I guess you were so nervous that you had to sleep through the whole thing.” Yeah. I woke up when the plane hit the brakes in Chicago. We took a train back to our terminal in Indiana and drove home for some much needed sleep…in beds.
Brooklyn Trip 2.
I saw a lot of the same stuff on this trip as the first time, but we flew out of JFK instead. We were running VERY tight and took an Uber to the airport, where we had the best Uber driver. Only in New York will you get picked up in an Uber where the driver has an Infinity. He would talk your ear off and after the 800 mile drive in an uncomfortable basic seat, his cooled leather seats felt amazing. He could talk to us all day and I wouldn’t have cared. Pro tip: if you drive Uber, NYC is the place to do it! We hit our plane and the doors closed maybe ten minutes after we got in the terminal. For this flight, I stayed awake for part of it, still nervous…till I started snoring.
LA Trip.
I have never been west of the Mississippi so this trip was full of firsts for me. We went through Iowa, Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, and finished in California so I added seven new states to my list in just three days. The first day was uneventful with some of the flattest land you’ve ever seen. Nebraska looked just like central Indiana with the sea of farmland that extended to the horizon, but as the sun slowly sat, the prairie light up and almost seemed to be on fire. I didn’t expect to see that kind of beauty in waves of grain, but there it was. The backdrop turned into a shimmering gold as I pulled over for a moment to just take it all in. We hit Colorado at night and slept till morning just East of Denver. When we left, I drove through Denver with no problem. As we approached the city, we could see the Rockies slowly starting to emerge from a fog behind and I was awestruck. Then I drove through that crap and I pissed off a lot of people behind and beside me. After getting a flat tire and dealing with the repair, we didn’t get as far as we wanted to that day and bedded down in the first town we came across in Utah with a truck stop. Utah seemed weird, like I may be abducted by aliens at any moment, but it had its own beauty to it as the sun sat and the sky turned navy blue to black across the horizon. The sun sat over the mountains, but not past the horizon which makes for a really cool sight. The depth of the blue in the sky is a color I don’t recall ever seeing in nature before. We drove through Utah, which had more mountains in it and more white-knuckle driving before making our way into Arizona. We were only there for less than one-hundred miles, but since the trucks are commercial, we had to get permits from the state to drive through (which seems unconstitutional to me since the federal government regulates interstate commerce). Either way, the rock formations changed to something definitively Southwest and it looked really cool. Fractured cliffs and gorges were strewn across the visual fabric. It was dry and warm. We hit Nevada next (another state that requires the possibly unconstitutional permit to drive a commercial truck through). As we hit the boarder between the states, it just got flat and looked like a desert you’d see in an old cowboy movie. We fueled up in Las Vegas and it was hot out there. The air conditioning in our trucks could barely keep up with the temperature and they talk about the “it’s a dry heat” crap but no, all it means as you sweat and as you sweat, it evaporates so your body’s natural cooling system isn’t allowed to work. Vegas was rather ugly because of the fine dust that seemed to cover everything like haze. I bet it looks great at night, but in the day, it was unimpressive and looks rather boring. We crossed into California and the Mojave Desert was 100 degrees. For some reason, it felt better than the 90 degrees in Nevada though and there was a peace to it. I always feared going to California because I wasn’t sure if I’d want to leave and I later found out that I was right. We approached LA in some of the worst traffic I have ever seen and it took over an hour to go twenty miles, but for some reason, my stress in my shoulders from driving in that stop and go traffic wasn’t as bad as it was in the Rockies. We made our delivery just outside of LA and went to dinner at a nice Korean Barbecue place named Doctor Chicken. The food was good, but after driving through 100 degree weather, I guess we weren’t that in the mood for friend chicken or a Korean version of sake. At dinner, he got an email and he then started using the F-word like a comma. Our flight was canceled with no explanation. Our plan was simple, to make our drop off, enjoy the LA area for a few hours, then fly to Chicago, and take the train back to our cars. Yeah…no…. We ended up with a room in a Motel 6 which wasn’t as bad as we thought it’d be. He wanted to Skype his girlfriend and I wanted a drink so I went to the front desk and asked the clerk if there were any bars within walking distance and he told me there were not. Crap! He told me I could buy a beer at the Circle K next to the hotel, but walking around town drinking something out of a brown paper bag just looks sad so I went for a walk instead where I happened upon some unedited hip hop music from a place with a sign that read “Cocktails,” which usually means it’s gonna be classy (haha). I went in and the bouncer did the “no talking bad ass nod” that I could come in. Whatever! I guess they gotta make it look good. I ordered a Long Island and it was $8. I’m used to $7 for them in Indiana, so I expected Chicago prices ($15 or so) and was very happy to pay the $8 for one (or two). The bar was a cross-section of the local area and I was in love with the place. It’s called Bottoms Up Bar & Entertainment. I had an awesome time. It’s just enough of a walk from the hotels that the tourists aren’t there, so it was a local place with local flavor and I may have a new favorite bar…2,200 miles from my house. After this, the next morning we got to the airport promptly two minutes late (thanks to a slow Uber driver, LA traffic, and our own lack of motivation) and missed our flight plus two standby seats to finally leave LA some 19 hours after we were originally scheduled to.
Jacksonville Trip.
This trip can be summed up in one word…RAIN!!! It rained from Indiana to Florida. When it didn’t rain, once I was down south, there were just bugs everywhere. I hope the next time down this way fares a bit better for me down here. Maybe a nice wintertime trip down here is in store.
I literally get paid to go vagabonding around the country and have the security of a paycheck while I do it. I am living my American dream for now so no, I don’t regret leaving my job and if anyone ever asks why I quit the way I did, I show them a picture from along the way and they usually get it.
Thank you for reading this piece from Michael Beebe. For more about Michael, please visit TheMichaelBeebe.com or VagabondingAmerica.com.
