Trucker Storyteller

Hello, and welcome to Stories All the Time.

Glad you are here.

Let's get into it.

I've been driving long haul for just over four years, mostly doing east coast runs.

Pretty routine stuff.

New Jersey to Florida, Maryland to Georgia, sometimes as far west as Tennessee.

I've gotten used to the overnight shifts, the tight schedules, and the lonely stretches of highway.

Appalachia, though, that always hits different, especially after midnight.

The Sparch had booked me on a rush delivery headed to Roanoke, and they were all excited because someone found a shortcut.

Supposedly, it would shave nearly an hour off the usual route, but it meant leaving the interstate earlier than normal and taking a small estate road that cut across the mountains.

I turned off the main highway around 11.30 and started climbing into the hills.

At first, it wasn't too bad.

The road was narrow, but not unusually so.

No shoulder, but a decent surface.

Saved.

No big cracks or potholes.

Nothing you wouldn't expect in a rural area.

After maybe 10 or 15 minutes, this scenery changed.

The trees pressed in tighter and the road started looking a little rougher.

No lights.