Adventures in posture

Color has actually arrived now. Up north, at least.

I started running into it in Virginia, just above the North Carolina border. Just touches of red and rust and yellow, taking the edge off the green of the hills.

When I stopped for the night, just before getting on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, the scarlets and golds were taking the lead. It's not "peak color" yet, even here, but it's worth looking at already. Another couple of weeks, maybe, and I'll owe my wife a drive through North Georgia.

I'm parked where I can see the hills, instead of acres of trucks. A rare thing, that--usually it isn't safe, pulling into a parking place nose first--but every once in a while you find a place where you can drive straight in and back straight out. Nice when it happens. It's almost dark already, so I relax and enjoy while I can still see something.

Relaxing has been a major part of my day today. It can be work, you know. Relaxing, that is.

Modern semi-tractor tend to have rather nice seats--very useful when you're sitting in them eight or ten hours a day, every day, for a week or more at a time. The seats in my truck slide back and forth, of course. You can also adjust the back angle, the height, and the firmness and shape of the chair itself (thanks to the truck's compressed-air system and half a dozen or so inflatable cushions in the seat). Very nice.

Complicated, too. It took me a day or two, when I started driving, just to figure out how to adjust the thing--there are half a dozen buttons down there. And I'm just now figuring out how to adjust it properly.

For most of my life, I've thought the most comfortable sitting position is more or less upright. To me, a recliner is for lying down. It's certainly not for driving.

I still hate lying back with my hands on a steering wheel. But after two years I've finally figured out that I get fewer backaches if I dial the seat-back a few notches back. I think it's because I can't put my feet flat on the floor if one of them is on the accelerator. And if your legs are stretched out, you have to lean back a little.

I figured that out today. That's what I was thinking about, when I wasn't keeping an eye on every other driver on the road, or sneaking quick glimpses at the colors around me.

The life of a trucker is an exciting one.