The Plum Trucker
Occasionally we will be featuring trucker blogs and starting off this new trend is Plum Trucker.
Hailing from Crystal River, Florida and not exactly your average trucker - she's graduated from college and works the road with her fiance, Kendall. Leaving college they signed up with a trucking school, took the 5 week course and are now "living the life" trucking across the country. You don't get a more "different" career trajectory than that!
We liked Plum Trucker's blog because it shows several things. First, that it is possible to get into the trucking business and to enjoy yourself at the same time. It's not all hard work and no play and even the most jaded, aged trucker is going to get the chance to see something new every run.
Another reason why we liked this rookie trucker blog was she's honest and funny - I mean, how many times do you get trucker's jawing about shopping for Keen shoes and how much they hurt? She's also pretty honest about life, like hauling explosives with a gimped out truck.
Plum Trucker may be riding the roads with her lucky fiance in a traditional rig, but they are also bringing the technology which is changing our lives into the cab too. This is a trucking chick with an iPod, iPad, GPS, Kindle, Nook, iPhone, and did we forget her blog?
Yet another reason we like Plum Trucker's blog is because it gives you a good insight into what it's like to be a rookie trucker. The dead heading, the crappy rigs, keeping tabs on your hours, the characters you meet and the good, the bad and the ugly. No part of the rookie trucking experience is left untouched from food, the effect of long hours and breaks affecting your sleep patterns and sometimes the feeling of just being exhausted and you could sleep for a month (and still feel like death warmed up).
There's another reason I like Plum Trucker - she's a woman and I like women truckers and Kendall will just have to get used to that :) While there are more than a few lady truckers on the roads, we could always do with more. They brighten up the CB chatter, they look better than the guys do, they smell a lot nicer and they just brighten up my whole day.
It'd be nice to think that in ten years Plum Trucker will still be trucking, with Kendall, across the country and enjoying the life just as much as she clearly is today.
If you have a blog you want to recommend and share with us - send us a link in a comment and we'll take a look.