In eight or nine hours, I'm picking up our moving truck. This isn't some pansy-assed oversized van, but a GREAT BIG 26-foot truck. Although the following admission is sure to make me seem less manly (like I worry about that), I'm more than a little intimidated by the prospect of driving something so large. Keep in mind that my everyday car is a 1995 Honda Civic. Honda Civic >>>> 26-foot truck. Yikes. If we didn't have to haul furniture, boxes, and assorted sundries, I could probably drive the Civic into the back of the Very Big Truck and hit the road! Remember when the Knight Rider car used to shoot out of the back of a moving semi? Replace Kitt with my Honda Civic and you'll get the image I have in my head. I'm way cooler than David Hasselhoff.
Seriously, though, driving such large vehicles has never been on my list of Favorite Things to Do Over the Summer. When behind the wheel of such a monstrosity, I never feel like I'm quite in control. I feel like I'm hurtling down the road, barely avoiding disaster after disaster. Is it just me or is it virtually impossible to see if there's a car saddled up next to the passenger side of a big truck? I'm always worried I'm going to squash some poor soul driving a tiny Honda Civic. Not only do I have to drive this behemoth of a truck almost 900 miles to our new home, I get to negotiate the narrow streets surrounding Denver's Washington Park. STK's folks live in that area and we have to pick up a treadmill, fancy cutting board (I'm still trying to picture what the heck this thing is--digital pics once it's in our possession), crib, and a half dozen boxes. We made a similar trip to my parents' place last evening. In addition to the bagged comics stored appropriately in three comic book boxes, I carried eight comic book filled banker/file boxes out of the depths of the parental storage unit. At 37 years of age, I think STK and I have finally relieved our parents of storage duty.
The one good things about this move is that J, my friend who knows much about all things traditionally masculine (home repairs, guns, driving big trucks), is making the journey with us. His task is to help me drive the Very Big Truck to our final destination. If I know J, he probably knows CB talk, owns a trucker hat, and will be capalbe of whipping the Very Big Truck into the smallest of parking spaces.* He's just like that. Unfortunately, I don't think J will be joining me for the Washington Park adventure. If you read a headline like "Idiot Rolls Moving Truck in Wash Park" in the next day or so, you'll know the Very Big Truck was more than I could handle.
*Beyond the smattering of trucker stuff we all learned during the 1970s craze? What was that all about? Remember the movies Smokey and The Bandit and Convoy? Remember the song? People actually paid money to partake in trucker culture. Oh, and who could forget BJ and the Bear? The adventures of a trucker and his chimpanzee companion kept us tuning in each week, eh? Actually, I'm happy to report that I hated BJ and the Bear. I was more a Dukes of Hazzard kind of guy.
2 comments:
Good luck with the Very Big Truck. If it's any consolation, I had similar issues the first time I drove a U-haul with all our stuff across SLC. Not the same distace, of course, but similar issues with narrow streets and the like. Of course, I have had a little experience with farm trucks and such. Still, those things are huge, even bigger than the Dreadnought!
I have three pieces of advice for dealing with the VBT:
1. Check your mirrors often - OCD-level often, in fact. People seem to love riding in the blind spot of a VBT. That, of course, is because people are idiots.
2. Plan to take twice the normal time/space doing any driving manuever: braking, changing lanes, turning, etc. With a VBT, the Law of Conservation of Momentum is not your friend.
3. Try not to think about how much you're going to spend on gas. It's a one-time expense. Don't let it make you crazy.
10-4, good buddy. Keep the bugs off your glass and the bears off your...tail.
Yes good luck with the move Derek. Like michael said, they love to drive in the blind spot., but if you nudge over just a weee bit they sometimes get the message heehee. On the road myself right now.. leaving tx and headin to Fresno, Ca.
((((((derek))))))) be well.
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