Whether you view truckers as hard-working types, dirty and dangerous, or the lone traveler on some forgotten highway where nobody ever roams, you have to hand it to the people who get behind the wheel of a massive truck hooked to an even bigger trailer and set off for destinations far and wide. I watched my father jump into the seat of a Kenworth for years, hauling product all over the country, and even tagged along with him on a trip once. Work is an understatement. Yes, there’s a bit of sitting and all, but between keeping eighteen wheels moving and managing to not turn some idiot in a Hyundai into a road pancake because they didn’t see the rig, not to mention schedules, loads, paperwork and the other fun bits that come along with the territory, at the end of the day the driver is dog-tired and ready to rack out in the back of the cab…if they’re lucky.

The whole trucker scene might have died down some past the late 1970s, but truckers as a whole still have a bit of an aura about them. They aren’t rooted…they roam the country, going from stop to stop, depot to drop-off, and live a nomadic lifestyle that many people are jealous of (even if they won’t say it out loud). Truck driving has come a long way from the days of triple-stick W900s and a smoky trail of exhaust behind the cab, for sure, but the king of the road feeling that comes with wheeling one of these around doesn’t change.