With a heavy load and headwinds, it takes a long time to go up the hills and down the hills.  It tires the driver completely out.  There is not a lot of traffic on the NV highways, relatively speaking, once you get out of Las Vegas or Reno.  However, because of the narrow two lane roads, hilly and mountainous terrain, it can be a real challenge, safety wise.

Today, we had a motor home and four four-wheelers trying to go around our load on a blind hill.  The motor home and all the four wheelers started to pass when I called that a four wheeler was coming back.  The motor home and three of the four cars BARELY made it around the load.  The fourth vehicle actually STOPPED in the other lane, forcing the oncoming car to go into the ditch.  Thankfully no one was hurt…but it is an example of how dangerous things can be out here on the road.

The rear escort brought a trainee today.  I think that is great!  I really think his new boss is doing the wise thing by actually training this young man before putting him in a truck and pushing him out in front of or behind a load.

This young man got a terrific education today.  He saw a broad range of the types of things that an escort needs to know.  We ran high pole on the interstates, through some urban environment, and on skinny two lane roads.  He got to see how blind even truck drivers can be.  On one two lane road, our wide and high load was crossing a skinny bridge.  I was in front with two sets of wig-wags running, plus my four ways, headlights and police style lightbar going…and I was 3/4′s of the way into the other lane and waving my hand at an oncoming truck driver who completely ignored me.  Self preservation being what it is, I got out of his way and warned our truck driver that this truck was NOT going to stop.  When the oncoming truck driver got over the hill and saw my load, he hit the brakes and went into the ditch.  The new trainee had a chance to learn that no matter what we do, even professional truck drivers ignore us at everyone’s peril.

He also had a chance to see some great teamwork.  The rear escort (a woman who also is a big truck driver) anticipated the driver’s every need, kept me informed about speed changes, talked the driver through tight turns…the entire gamut.  This one day was almost a complete training session.  Imagine what he’s going to learn tomorrow when we go through a densely populated metropolitan area such as Las Vegas tomorrow.