Mother Trucker: An Urban Couple Downshifts to Life on the Road

A true story of how a middle-aged married couple abandon lucrative white-collar professional careers to become long-haul truck drivers for Schneider National in Green Bay, WI. David Hamel, a mechanical engineer, and Shelley Hamel, past Director of Product Development for the American Girl doll company, decide to ditch their urban life and go to truck-driving school. For David, driving school was a piece of cake. For Shelley, it was murder.
Nearly flunking out of truck driving school, Shelley successfully faces her twin demons of double-clutching and ten nasty gears, and with her talented mechanical engineer husband, David, launches a 3-year experiment in alternative living before retirement. For all those people who long to quit their office jobs, team driving offers an escape not unlike full-time RVing, except you get paid to do it. This how-to guide examines life on the open road, the upside as well as the danger, with many day-to-day details of ways to maximize the freedom of exploration in this non-traditional life.
Driving a semi with a 52’ trailer coast to coast gives you a view of America like no other, and this book brings you right into the sleeper cab with the Hamels to share stories, tips, and firsthand experience.