The Gray Dog to Joplin

Sunday, April 27, 2008

The Gray Dog to Joplin

I left Saturday at 7:05 PM from Cookeville, TN for a scheduled 19 ½ hours to Joplin, Missouri. I hadn’t realized how many people that use the buses for travel. Every leg of the trip has been filled to capacitive except the last. Here are a few pointers for making the bus trip: First they are not reliable so give your self plenty of extra time. I have lucked out and not had any major delays but I met several people that have. Their bus has been late for a connection and then they get stuck for hours waiting for the next ride. Don’t plan it too close. Second: They don’t transfer you luggage, you do it so make it easy on yourself and don’t take too much. The overhead compartments are smaller that on a plane. A pillow comes in handy while traveling on a long trip. Third: Bring food and water, it isn’t easy to get what you need and the costs in the bus depots are a rip off. I brought 3 bottles of water and I ran out. Overall it was a rough trip.

You spend a lot of time on the bus so you meet the people around you. I met several truck drivers on the trip. Some were going to Fort Smith, Arkansas for USA Trucks. I met some that were headed to Conway in Joplin, and some going on to TMC in Des Moines Iowa. In the short time that I have been involved with trucking I have met some very nice people.

When we got to the bus station in Joplin we were picked up in vans by a local cab company. We were then taken to Quality Inn and given rooms. We share 2 to a room. Conway has shuttles that run regular routes around Joplin that you can take for free. Also if you need to go somewhere that is not on the route you can take the cab company for free. Tomorrow we get picked up by a shuttle at 6:15 and taken to the CFI/Conway offices to do our paper work, do our drug test, and get checked into the hotel were we will be staying during the week orientation. It seems that everyone has different information but all that should be clearer tomorrow. They are about 20 of us here.

We will be doing driving test this week also. Clutch to neutral, …….???? There is more to that but at 60 the memories get short!!!! HEEEELP!!! hold to 1000RPM, clutch and do gear recovery. Yes that’s it.