She works hard for this Honey..

Today Merrily finished the truck driving class and SHE NAILED IT!!!!!!! It took 8 weeks of 10 hour days but she never missed a day of class.

She set several benchmarks.

• Oldest woman ever to finish the class
• Only woman of the 6 originals, to actually finish and pass the class. The rest were in their 20s and 30s.
• Only woman to take all of her final tests right after having survived a direct hit by a tornado! (ok, so maybe this is more of a Guinness book kind of thing… but it is definitely unique.
• She did excellent on all of the written tests
• She says, “backing a trailer is a guy thing because none of us girls could back worth a darn!”
• She passed yesterday’s forward obstacle course, the Coupling/uncoupling and written regulations tests with no errors!
• She managed to hang in there while 20 of the 43 original students failed the class prior to today.  That, alone, puts her in the top half of the class. 
• Today was the 100 question final written exam and she only missed 3.
• Today was also her last road test, which she passed with no problem.
• She came in exhausted but elated at 1:00 PM and we ate lunch. Afterwards, she read for a bit and then said, “I am going to take a nap…. just because I can.”  … She was always gone to school by 6:40am and was not out of class most days before 6pm.. do the math.. she was never home during “napping” time.
• I love her immensely and forever. God has blessed me almost more than I can bear.
• Now the fun begins for real.

For the past 60 years, Merrily has been and always will be the key to my life.

Merrily, I love you, forever.

Tornado, Tornado, Tornado

Now that I have some connectivity, I wanted to get these pictures and some perspectives about what it was like being inside an RV while a tornado raged around outside.

The short answer:  Not Fun! But…

We are still not quite sure what exactly hit us. The winds had to be in excess of 160 mph to do the damage it did but the “swirling” damage typical of a tornado is completely missing. Although it is being called a tornado, it must have been ground level wind shear. Perhaps a horizontal funnel due to the very high ground speed (60+ mph) it had. Might have just drug the tail of the twister out behind it all the way.

We see plenty of damage like this:

This is the other side of DakotR.

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All the better to see it with, my Dear.

There were other RVs that suffered worse damage but no one was hurt.

 

Just before it hit us, Phillip, one of the workampers at this KOA, knocked on the door to tell us that it was headed this way and we could go take shelter in the meeting room. Hail between marble and jaw breaker sizes was crashing down on him and he wore only a baseball cap.

He was very lucky to not be hurt but I am sure it was still painful.  I quickly thanked him, closed the door, walked back into the bedroom where Merrily was lying on the floor between the foot of the bed and the  bedroom storage drawers. I glanced out of the side window to see hurricane strength winds blowing all sorts of stuff past us. I knew it was too late to try to leave the RV, even if it was only to jump into the ditch 20 feet behind us. 

When we parked here 2 months ago, I had made a mental note that this ditch would be a good place to shelter in a pinch.  Had this tornado been much stronger, it would have definitely been better than the meeting house up at the entrance which got a direct hit and some damage.

For a moment, a 12 inch piece of pink insulation wafted up to the window and paused momentarily before instantly disappearing from view. Must have been a little eddy current there due to the Kitchen slideout protrusion.

The good fortune for us is that we were sheltered from most of the flying debris by the heavy bush and cedar trees lining the deep drainage ditch right behind us. The trees heavily covered in vines that blew over onto the rear of DaKotR acted like a blast shield and deflected the wind up and over us.

Looking at what the wind took out from directly behind us,

Notice the cedar tree stub just to the left of the transformer. That tree exploded and pieces landed on us and clear across the street.

It seems that we got some of the strongest winds in the park blew right over us. This is the only spot that they were completely gone in that whole row.

I sure appreciate the workmanship and materials of the King of The Road we have. Despite the huge weight of the trees on the back of it and on the big slideout, it did not crumple, crush or warp at all. It’s really too bad they are no longer building RVs.

I have posted a lot more photos to view in a set of time ordered albums on my Picasa site. http://www.picasaweb.google.com/emeryn I hope you find this informative.

I am keeping this relatively short to encourage more readers to read the whole thing.  I will be filling in more information about this experience in the coming days.

Meanwhile, I hope this answers a lot of your questions.

ttfn

Hey… Anybody seen Toto?

This time it wasn’t Dorothy.. it was us!

Military training makes one just duck when the sergeant says DUCK!  It drills out of one the momentary hesitation to say why… even in one’s own mind.  DUCK means DUCK NOW and preferably SOONER than NOW!

If you ever hear a tornado WARNING…. go seek appropriate shelter. Don’t waste time trying to find out where it is at that moment because if it is close by, you have probably already lost access to current radar images on TV.  Cell phones, even smart ones will take time to use to try to get information.

Trust me when I say, the time it takes for the best cell phone on the best WIFI or wireless service to find and pull in an image that is 2 minutes old can be the difference between life, death or disability.

TORNADO WARNING is the civilian equivalent of the military order DUCK! Do not try to second guess it or validate the source of 2 minute old data.

Tornadoes don’t appear at one edge of a tornado warning area and travel in a straight line to another edge. They can spontaneously spawn and die all over the Tornado Warning area. They are usually accompanied by hail in sizes from BBs to softballs and traveling as fast or faster than either. They can be slushy or rock hard and you may never know the difference if you are hit in the head by one.

If you think that they are interesting to see in storm chaser movies, ask yourself how big the stone was which was thrown by David to kill Goliath? It certainly could not have been traveling as fast as a single piece of hail.  Consider, too, that getting knocked out by a piece of hail immediately renders you unable to protect yourself or control the safety of yourself and your family.

Whether “stoned” to death by ongoing hail or picked up unconscious by the tornado and shaken ( not stirred) in a cocktail of rocks (yes, rocks), wood, roofing, masonry and everything else that is not part of a space shuttle launching platform, you will not survive and it will be because when you were warned, you did not DUCK!

ttfn

Got the CDL, now for the Diploma

Merrily now has her Commercial Driver’s License in hand and is fully legal and trained to drive big rigs.

Of course, her goal was to become a safe competent driver of our own home and that, she has accomplished through this 8 week truck driver training class.

I am sure that she could have gotten a license on her own without the class through study and some practice with our own rig. But, what she wanted was to be safe, confident and comfortable doing it and that takes a lot of hands on time behind the wheel.

Most of her 10 hour days were spent on the practice field where they have the various field exercises setup with trucks and trailers, obstacles and simulated typical situations to learn to navigate.

Typically, 3 hours of each day was in the classroom learning terminology, technology, regulations, map reading and how to fill out log books. With the possible exception of the log books, all of other content goes to training a driver to be more aware even when a situation is not in play.

The rest of the day was spent getting hands on experience in their trucks with their instructors. That has trained her mind, eyes and muscles to reliably respond correctly in real time situations. This not something that one can get from books. Neurological patterning and muscle memory training has to be done through conscious repetitive actions and that means some long exhausting hours behind the wheel.

Prior to this class she had never driven a truck while towing a trailer of any sort. By itself, that makes for a huge confidence gap. Add to it virtually no experience backing any sort of a trailer and you have borderline panic just thinking about parking our rig.

Now, her confidence is solid and her fears are gone. Add some time on the road and she will be as comfortable handling our rig as she is running to the grocery store in our Smart car.

Congratulations, my Love!

ttfn

Two down, One to go

Today, Merrily passed her DOT maneuvering tests (backing 100’ in a narrow channel and a 90 degree backing between two trailers).

She said that was easy compared to the equivalent tests to pass the class. They have less room, tighter limits and less allowance for slop and oversight.

She is happy. Still has just one more test to go, her on the road DOT driving test and then she can go pick up her CDL from the DMV and start driving solo on the road.

I am just about to bust a gut because I am so happy for her! This is just terrific!

ttfn

And now.. A Double Wooohoooo!!!!

Merrily passed her 10 speed truck driving certification today!!!!   Momentous occasion!

At this point, at least 6 students out of 43 were unable to pass even a single truck certification and were dropped from the course.

Tomorrow and Wednesday they will take the two  90 minute tests (one each day) for Maps and for logs. If you ever thought that truckers don’t have to be smart, this course will change your mind.

Sure, a few rogues skip by for awhile and make a bad rep for the rest but a career professional driver has to be smart or have a short career, period. 

Merrily is closing in on the end of the class… less than 2 weeks away.

ttfn

WooHoo! Merrily qualified on the 9 speed… One more to go…

To most, this probably seems like … “….what?…”. But this is a really big deal.  In order to be certified and get her CDL, she has several tests to pass. Some are written but the hardest are the driving qualifications in the big trucks. They have 9 speed and 10 speed semis with 48’ trailers at the school and to pass the class and get a certificate to exchange for your CDL at the DMV, you have to qualify on both kinds of trucks.

She almost qualified on the 10 speed, yesterday, but due to a capricious decision by the instructor, she didn’t. Today, she did qualify on the 9 speed trucks so just one more to go.

To graduate the class, she still has to pass several different backing  tests (90 degree to a dock, serpentine offset to dock) and the 100 foot alley back (which is not as easy as it sounds). You only have about 6” on either side of your tires to work in to back a 48’ trailer 100 feet in a straight line.

She is very close, though. She has really worked hard at this course and will definitely be a better driver than I am when she graduates from the class in a couple more weeks.

I love her so much but I admire her equally so it is impossible to not be excited and proud for her.  I don’t know how many other 60+ year old women would even consider making this effort but she has and is owning the show and we are going to have an unbelievably great life on the road because of it.

WE, not just me, will travel the country, safely and comfortably and, as always, know that someone is always there to have our back

ttfn.