Over the following weeks and months, my runs kept repeating. Most of the time, I drove the same route between Slovakia and Germany, and this routine gradually became almost automatic. I knew where to expect traffic jams, where to stop, and where I would most likely spend the night.
Everything was beginning to feel sterile, like a marriage in which the passion gradually fades.
I completed this route twice a week, although sometimes only once, depending on the schedule. It was not a bad job. I knew the road, knew what to expect, and handled most situations without much stress. However, the adventurous spirit I had felt during my trips to Spain was slowly disappearing.
My First Roadside Inspection
I was driving along a Polish motorway when a transport inspection vehicle appeared in front of me. They switched on their warning lights and instructed me to follow them. We left the motorway and pulled into an inspection area. After many months of driving, it had finally happened to me too.
I parked the semi-trailer combination and asked them with a smile:
“Hi guys, how can I help you?”
Both inspectors started laughing. I handed over my documents, and they downloaded the data from my tachograph. While one analysed everything inside their vehicle, the other checked the truck.
I knew that I had not knowingly committed an offence, but during an inspection, you can never be sure that they will not find a small issue. I have never been the type to argue with the authorities. Even if they had found something, I would simply have accepted it.
After a while, one inspector returned with my documents, smiled, and said:
“Bravo, bravo. Alles gut.”
He spoke German and I spoke English, but we understood each other. Everything was in order, I took a photograph to remember the moment, and continued on my way. My first roadside inspection was behind me.
Trading Experiences at the Warehouse
At a Slovak company where I regularly loaded and unloaded, I became friends with one of the warehouse workers. He told me that he had never sat inside a truck, although he was curious about it. I offered to take him for a short ride around the company grounds.
At first, he reacted in a typically Slovak way: “No, no, there is no need.” It was obvious that he wanted to try it but felt shy. In the end, he joined me in the cab and sat beside me while I moved around the yard. For a moment, he could experience the view from inside a truck cab.
The next time we met, he returned the favour. He worked with a forklift and knew that I had never sat on one, so he asked whether I would like to try driving it.
My first time behind the controls of a forklift.
It was not as complicated as I had imagined, but most importantly, it was fun. I gave him his first experience inside a truck, and he gave me my first opportunity to drive a forklift. Moments like these brought life into an ordinary working day.
A Week Driving Only in Slovakia
It was May, the month often associated with love. In my case, however, it mainly brought a change at work. There were not many international runs during one particular week, so my boss scheduled several domestic jobs around Slovakia.
One of them took me to a farm that grew turf. I transported rolls of grass halfway across Slovakia to a small village in the north, where a new public square was being built. When I saw what my delivery was for, the job felt different from an ordinary run between two warehouses.
I need to see a tangible result from my work and know that what I have done has a clear purpose. Because of this delivery, the turf made its way from the farm to the new square, and the village would soon have a more attractive place for its residents. I liked knowing that I had played a small part in making that happen.
The week had a different rhythm. One day I loaded somewhere and moved to the next location. The following day, I unloaded and continued towards another job. Instead of repeating the same route, I discovered different parts of my own country, visited new companies, and faced new situations.
It was during these runs that I first seriously thought about trying domestic trucking. I had never spent an entire working week, from Monday to Friday, driving only within Slovakia, but I discovered that this type of work could also be interesting. After all, domestic transport is another part of life behind the wheel.
At the time, it was only an idea that I quietly stored somewhere in the back of my mind. Still, I said to myself:
“Why not? I can at least give it a try.”