News

Part of being a professional driver is finding a place to park, and truck stop parking isn’t always available everywhere you go. When there’s no designated area, you’re tasked with finding a place with enough space to park your rig for rests and for overnights. Out on our Facebook page, we asked, “Where’s the craziest place you’ve parked your rig?” Today, I’m sharing the answers. Find out what places our professional drivers mentioned.

Being a professional driver comes with plenty of benefits, like the freedom of seeing the world and setting your own schedule instead of being stuck in an office working a nine to five. But, that freedom comes at a cost. Especially for over-the-road drivers, it can mean long periods of times spent away from family, friends, and loved ones.

When professional drivers talk inflation, usually there’s only a 50/50 chance they’re talking economics. After all, they depend on the inflation in their tires to get them where they need to safely go every single day. That’s a minimum of 18 reasons to care about inflation each and every day.  

At Clearwater Travel Plaza, we go beyond being a fuel stop. As one of only three Petro fueling centers in the state of Minnesota, we hope you decide to collect and redeem your hard-earned points with us – especially because everything in our Minnesota Reflection gift shop is available for purchase with Petro UltraOne Points.

Depending on the type of driving you do, you might be home every night or away for weeksat a time. You might drive the same line haul daily, or you might take some of the most scenic routes the continental United States has to offer.

In some form or another, professional drivers typically find their own ways of getting things done. Since they spend the majority of their time in their cab, staying informed and staying comfortable has a lot more to do with how prepared drivers are before heading out. Luckily, mobile technology is changing that. 

In this fourth installment of our professional driver series, I'd like to introduce Kris. Kris is a Central Minnesota native, and he's been a professional driver for the past 25 years. Although he's traveled to or through every state in the lower 48, his favorite way to travel is north to south and south to north. Keep reading to learn a little bit more about Kris. 

What’s the difference between good enough and getting what you really want? I think it’s about quality vs. cost. There’s nothing wrong with making decisions with cost as your main deciding factor, and there’s also nothing wrong with making decisions based on quality. Both are perfectly normal ways to go about making decisions about goods and services. But, they are two separate approaches with separate outcomes.

Jim became a professional driver in 1979. He was 25 years old, working on a farm and wanting to do something different. Although it was a new industry for him, Jim got his professional driver's license and got to work. He spent nine years as a company driver before becoming an owner/operator. He currently has three trucks - his oldest grandsons drive the other two.