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I spent the summer after my 21st birthday fulfilling this life goal. I spent several weeks learning how to drive cab-over Freightliners under the blazing rural Indiana sun. I hung out with a guy from Baton Rouge whose future was in hauling hogs. That summer I drove all over New England and the mid-Atlantic with my co-driver, Tom, getting into all kinds of trouble along the way.

I was up way too late one night driving the New York State Thruway and I started to hallucinate images of a man hanging off the side of the trailer. We somehow escaped the lot lizards in New Jersey, cruised by the view of Monadnock Mountain at least once a week, and tried to avoid everyone in the hammer-down lane revved up on coke and speeders. I stopped driving when my company stuck me in an old, tired truck with a Super-10 transmission and I proceeded to stall it out every hour from Baltimore to New York. My nerves were so shot after that, I slept for a week when I got home.

I had not successfully learned stick-shift before I got behind the wheel of one of these behemoths, but now I’m a pro in my own little Jeep. The respect you’ll learn for the road and the power behind 80,000 pounds makes this worth it..