Pennsylvania Dutch

A new truck and a new trainer this week. The truck; a Peterbilt which is, I’m told, the ultimate in truck driving luxury. “Everybody wants to drive a Pete” is a refrain that began in trucking school and I’m busy investigating why. It’s certainly very nice and feels easier to drive although I’m not entirely sure I understand the explanation of automatic centreing mechanisms. The mirrors and corners are in friendlier places, which will do for now. You’d only laugh if I suddenly came over all technical and anyway, that way becoming a trucking bore lies. The trainer - Dave - is into classic rock, Monty Python and being less neurotic about people’s shoes. Nothing much has gone wrong yet, which leaves less to write about, or it would if we weren’t in the middle of Mennonite Pennsylvania.

We have delivered a load of beer, are awaiting a pile of tyres and are sitting about musing on the oddness of the highway we have just travelled to get here. On the right side of the road are little washing lines strung by hard shoulders with hand-made quilts hung on them for sale, and on the left, a string of ‘adult entertainment’ establishments. This odd mix begs at least two questions of course; firstly, who in their right mind, even if they suddenly developed an urge to impulse buy a handmade quilt, would buy one that was already full of dust and diesel fumes? The second question has to be, where do the customers, and in fact the staff, of all these exotic establishments appear from?

Reasons to be cheerful; it’s warmer this week, we are better equipped with sleep and manageable timelines and I have learned that it is, in fact, possible to cross the border without incident. Will we manage a whole unpearshaped trip? It’s looking surprisingly likely.