Peterbilt Glider
Peterbilt Glider
Admiral Biscuit
The wide-open sky stretched out in front of her. Mostly clear ahead; cloudy to her right and behind her, a diagonal line of rain she’d just passed through.
The hood of her Peterbilt still glistened with it, and outside the sweep of her wipers, the windshield was still spotted with droplets.
She glanced in her mirror, then flicked the turn signal stalk, merging into the center lane to go around a transporter loaded with shiny new black and white Ram pickups and a single electric blue Wrangler at the very front.
She’s got a Wrangler, a cheerful yellow Rubicon. It’s a fun little truck—with the top and doors off, driving it is practically like flying.
Having the windshield folded down made it even better, but Officer Friendly hadn’t liked that and said he'd give her a ticket if she didn't put it up. Stupid. What was the point of a folding windshield if she wasn’t allowed to drive with the windshield down?
She studied the traffic ahead and behind before deciding to move back in front of the transporter. He flashed his headlights politely; she thanked him by blinking her brake lights and then turned her attention back to the road ahead.
A blue information sign informed her that the Vermilion Valley service plaza was two miles ahead. Out of habit, she did a quick scan of the gauges—everything was normal; her truck needed nothing.
A quick survey of her own physical well-being indicated she was also fine. She didn’t need to pee or eat or stretch her legs or wings, so she pressed on. Her truck was happiest when it was moving. She was happiest when she was moving.
•••
A lot of people didn't like Ohio because it was flat and boring, and a lot of it was. She was past that boring flatness now, dropping down into the Cuyahoga Valley. There was a false valley right before it; every time she saw the row of electric pylons she thought she was about to cross the river, but that was still a ways ahead.
She shook her head as she passed a gaggle of teens clustered on the side of the turnpike, taking selfies or something—who knew with kids? Just beyond them, a white stretch limo idled in the breakdown lane. Every day it was something different on the road, even on familiar routes. People, cars, trucks, weather, accidents, and she got a front-row seat to most of it.
The wonders of human infrastructure never got old. Sometimes she didn’t appreciate how much must have gone into constructing the highway, but when she crossed the bridge over the Cuyahoga River, big and broad enough to hold a pony town comfortably, nearly cloud-high over the river valley, she couldn’t help but admire the audacity of the humans who had planned it and built it.
She changed gears as the truck came off the bridge and started climbing out of the valley, the engine note of the Caterpillar deepening as it went to work.
Hills and turns made driving more interesting. Flat was boring. If she had a co-driver, she’d make him drive through the plains states while she slept in the back.
Her ears perked as the CB let off a brief burst of static, followed by: “Nova Scotia to Texas?”
Another burst of static—half the conversation was out of range. She tuned it out. Those trucks were far ahead.
Nova Scotia was an island, she knew that. Apparently, there was a bridge or a ford to it, or else trucks had to take a ferry to get there. It would be fun to be in a truck on a boat. Over in Scandinavia, trucks got to ride on boats all the time.
She glanced over to the right, and spotted a herd of deer grazing in a cornfield. She didn’t like deer. Deer were dumb.
Ahead, the sky was dark and ominous. She’d checked the weather before setting out, and it had promised a row of thunderstorms near the Ohio/Pennsylvania border around five, but when she checked at her last fuel stop, the prediction had changed to clear skies all the way through. That unreliable forecast was what happened with unmanaged weather.
Off to her left stretched the Lordstown Assembly Plant, and closer in, one of its offspring was overtaking her truck.
It slowed down as it drew abreast, and she glanced over, curious if it contained a kid who wanted her to blow the horn, or a woman who wanted to show off her boobs.
It was the former, so she obliged him, giving two short blats of her horn. The car honked back, then pulled ahead.
•••
The downpour started just before she reached the Ohio Route 2 exit, which advertised itself as the last exit in Ohio.
She’d intended to take a break just beyond the exit at the Glacier Hills service plaza, but had no intention of getting soaked—no intention of spending the next couple of hours with wet fur, a soaked seat, and the cab smelling like wet pony. She could push on into Pennsylvania. Maybe she’d be through the squall by then.
The CB crackled to life again with truckers griping about the rain that wasn’t supposed to happen. She eyed the mic, but decided not to bother responding. She couldn’t fix it by herself, and they were unlikely to appreciate a pegasus giving them weather management advice.
•••
The rain abated as she cleared the last tollbooth in Ohio, stopped entirely by the time she reached the first tollbooth in Pennsylvania, then started again as she descended into Beaver Valley.
Rain and fog—it was like driving through the inside of a stormcloud, and she brought her speed down a little and turned on her four-ways. It only took one idiot to start a pile-up.
Moments later, she found the idiot who was going to try. A solid grey shape loomed through the mist, resolving into a slow-moving semi trailer. She yanked her rig into the passing lane, then keyed her mic as she blasted past him. “Hey, Swift, I know your company’s cheap, but it doesn’t cost much to use your running lights.”
He didn’t answer—if he was driving for Swift, he probably couldn’t afford a CB anyway.
She thought about cutting in close, spraying him with all the water off the back of her truck, but what was the point? He wouldn’t learn anything from it.
•••
The Pennsylvania Turnpike was all twists and turns and hills and valleys, good for keeping her awake and alert. If that wasn’t enough, the Turnpike authority was busy with construction, with a new zone almost as soon as the previous one ended.
The skies had cleared somewhat, so she considered skipping to the next service plaza. She still didn’t need a break herself, and she had plenty of fuel.
She was still dithering a mile out—but it was smarter to stop. She could stretch out, check the weather. If it was going to stay bad, she could nest up with the other trucks. And, this plaza sold Auntie Anne’s pretzels, which tasted pretty good.
•••
The service plaza was already starting to accumulate trucks on the ramps, which wasn’t a good sign. However, fortune was with her, and she found an actual spot near the fuel island she could nose her Peterbilt into.
She opened the door and flew out of the cab—it was easier than trying to use the step on the saddle tank.
Before she went inside, she did a quick walkaround of her truck, making sure everything was as it should be. That also gave her a chance to get the blood circulating in her legs and work the kinks out of her tail.
The weather looked like it was going to be okay ahead, so she decided to continue onward. She had the hours left, and as traffic dropped off for the night, she could make better time. Maybe one day, she’d find a batpony co-driver and they could run around the clock, but the only batponies she knew drove trains instead.
She chewed the last bits of her pretzel as she walked back to her truck. This time she did a more thorough inspection, kicking each tire to make sure it was full of air, and opening the hood to check the various fluid levels and to make sure there were no leaks. It was probably unnecessary; the truck had been fine when she’d inspected it in the morning, but she’d feel really dumb if she broke down a mile or two out of a service plaza.
It took her a moment to settle back into her seat, and then she edged out of the line of trucks, cautiously until she was far enough forward to get a clear view around her cab. The cabovers she’d driven were better for visibility, although not nearly as comfortable.
•••
It got dark quick in the mountains. There was less traffic, which was nice, but there were other hazards—especially drunken idiots and deer that ran across the highway with no care for traffic.
She’d hit one once, and she felt really bad for it, but she wasn’t going to tip over her truck trying to avoid an animal that was too dumb to look both ways before crossing the road.
Up ahead was the tunnel, her least favorite part of the turnpike.
She glanced at the advisory sign—her truck didn’t have any prohibited cargo on it. She could still take the alternate route, but that was longer, and she risked dying on the clock.
It always came up quicker than she thought it would. Didn’t give her time to prepare herself before she drove her truck into the gaping maw of the mountain. They’d decided to run traffic in both directions through one bore, and she was stuck behind a crappy blue minivan going ten under the speed limit, giving her plenty of time to think about the millions of tons of rock pressing down on the fragile eggshell roof of the tunnel.
And then it was over. She was out in the air again, jockeying for position on the downhill side. She cracked the windows open, blowing out the stale tunnel air the vents had pulled in and the lingering traces of fear-sweat.
•••
The Midway Plaza was cluttered with trucks, stretching out onto the shoulder of the turnpike. On the eastbound side, a Pennsylvania State Trooper was up alongside the line, his flashing lights on, perhaps trying to warn other trucks that there was no more room for them, or perhaps trying to herd some of them along.
Behind her, a set of headlights blazed in her mirror, getting closer and closer, close enough that he might be considering pushing her down the hill. As soon as traffic in the passing lane cleared, he whipped out around her. It was too dark to get a look at the cab, but the trailer was covered in graffiti, so he was probably from New York City or New Jersey, which explained the rudeness.
She fell into the rhythm of the twists and turns, trying to avoid getting caught up in clusters of trucks and cars.
The first of two warning signs for Breezewood appeared. There used to be two signs with the warning message spread across both, but apparently truckers couldn’t be bothered to read the whole message, so they’d just replaced them with signs indicating truck restrictions on Route 30. Some day, if she ever got curious enough, she’d ride her Jeep topless down the road and see what all the fun was about.
•••
Despite the lack of traffic, Breezewood was as terrible as usual. Two lanes were closed for re-sealing cracks, and a group of workers practically had the whole exit ramp blocked. She squeezed past them cautiously, then wound up having to wait right beside a concrete saw. They weren’t polite enough to turn it off, so she just sat in a cloud of concrete dust until the light turned in her favor.
The first part of Interstate 70 was the worst. The speed limit was only 55, presumably just to get ticket revenue—there was no other reason for it to be so slow.
A CR England truck barreled past her, and she wondered if he knew where the cops were hiding, or if he was just hoping to get lucky. It wasn’t worth the risk, it wasn’t worth the fine, and it wasn’t worth the delay if the cop wanted to go through all her paperwork or do a roadside inspection.
It was hard to keep her truck at speed—it wanted to go, and so did she. Oblivious four-wheelers zoomed around her, confident in their radar detectors and Wazes and maybe the laws of probability.
•••
At the Maryland border, she unleashed her Peterbilt’s horses, ignoring the prudent slow acceleration in favor of a wide throttle. She couldn’t tell in the dark, but maybe there was a nice black soot cloud to show what she thought about Pennsylvania’s dumb speed limit.
Up ahead, a cloud had taken residence in a dip in the road, and it looked strange and otherworldly illuminated by the headlights of passing cars and trucks.
Then the road split again, and she lost sight of oncoming traffic. The GPS showed what was on either side of her, but she couldn’t see anything of it—there was just the road in front and the signs illuminated by her headlights, and a bit of road behind, showing red in the light of her taillights. The CB had fallen silent, nothing but faint white noise static. She was completely alone.
•••
She could have kept driving—she had just enough hours to make it to Baltimore, at least if her GPS wasn’t lying. And it would avoid the busiest traffic times in the Metro DC area, but then she’d have to find a place to park for the night, since she couldn’t unload until the morning.
Maryland’s welcome center rest area was over thirty miles from the border. Presumably, that was the first place where there was a flat enough piece of ground to put it. It was a good place to spend the night—the Appalachian Trail was in close flying distance, so she could get a good morning trot in, and it was downhill out of the rest area, so she wouldn’t have to work her truck hard first thing in the morning.
Naturally, it was crowded with trucks all bedded down for the night.
Sometimes, there were spots still open in the lot; trucks that were low on time didn’t want to drive through, find nothing, and be forced to continue on.
She stopped at the tail end of the queue, turned her four-ways on, then flew out of her truck.
Her pegasus-eye view of the lot revealed an empty space plenty big enough to fit her, as well as a flatbed that was cheating and parked over on the car side of the lot.
She glided back down to her truck and claimed the spot before someone else could take it.
It didn't take too long to take a trip to the restroom and then finish up her paperwork. Behind her, she had a sleeper berth with all the comforts of home—it even had a coffee maker and a hotplate. Not that she needed that much space; she could curl up on the front seat and sleep there, and she had when she’d been driving a daycab.
Or. . .
It was a nice night, so she grabbed her pillow and flew up to the top of the trailer, where the wind could blow through her fur, and the grumble of idling diesels could lull her to sleep.
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Ah I always love seeing new stories from you. miss Milfoil a bit somehow.
So I take it our trucker pony just loves the open road. If she thinks Ohio is flat she needs to go through Iowa and Nebraska. Heck eastern Colorado is very flat with only the Rocky Mountains being able to be seen.
Listen, if you keep writing the ohio turnpike into your stuff, I'm going to have to ask you to put me into one of these.
9759682
There's also Saskatchewan.
So... how many of those follow through when they see the driver is a pony?
I understood that reference.
I'd say that's a hurtful stereotype, but she is pretty close to Trenton...
In any case, a very nice slice of pony on Earth. It's the little touches like a pegasus hating having to drive through tunnels that really bring it to life. Thank you for it.
As a Bluenoser, I can tell you she really doesn't know that. Unless you mean Cape Breton.
Been following you for a while, always sweet, down to earth stuff to be found.
Very strange how the place youd expect the most to have primary rail freight has essentially nothing?
a grate short story. love how you turned your trip in to a story.
not sure why you cut down and ran the crappy turnpike and did not just head right across 80 and down 11/15 to 83 and right in to the convention.
The Admiral's ongoing infiltration of ponies onto Earth continues!
Well that was cute. Why are you so good at putting ponies and cars together?
Which bridge is this? The wiki lists a few.
I guess even ponies don't want to smell wet pony.
space
EDIT:
If you're a long haul trucker and you have the money you can buy a pretty sweet ride.
Thankfully there's at least one conscientious and absolutely adorable pegasus truck driver on the road.
Ahh, the classic 379i. I wouldn't say no to an International. (Some will argue for Freightliners.)
I could see an equine having trouble with a 10-speed, so I would guess an electro-pneumatic auto?
If there had been a clear day, she would have definitely seen at least one crew of Harley riders.
One thing I didn't see: the regular sight of shredded tire treads (alligators as they're called in the trade). Here's a list of trucker lingo.
"Ya got a full-grown bear on yer donkey! Don't get bit and drop to double-nickel!"
9759682
Yeah, driving across Kansas and through eastern Colorado it is flat. I swear you could stand on a Coke can and see across the whole state. No wonder some of those wagon train people went crazy.
9760169 Hey! *Western* Kansas, if you please. In the real Kansas where I live, it's properly bumpy. We took the northern route to Bronycon this year (I'm by Hershey at the moment) and some of those states make Western Kansas look lumpy too.
9760199
You're in my neck of the woods if you're in Hershey where no back road is straight and how do you people stand being closed in according to my Texas friends.
Said Peterbilt is Optimus Prime in disguise.
Pfffft!
No it isn't!
The land bridge between New-Brunswick and Nova scotia is at least 15km of width at it's most narrow point.
Unless there is a Nova Scotia island somewhere in the states I am not aware of?
My (admitedly limited) experience of driving through Painsylvania is that the weather is always shitty.
I take it you had a fun road trip again this year?
Trucker music? Trucker music!
(Scott H. Biram - Hit the Road)
Boy, now you's a-truckin' with the Rubber Duck, and I'm aboutta pull the plug on your drain~
9760381
C.W. McCall's Convoy comes to mind in that regard.
9760199
Yeah, I've never really understood why people say that Kansas is flat. Where I live it's rather hilly, and the elevation rises the closer you get to the Colorado border.
Really nice slice of life. And I especially dug the description of the Cuyahoga Valley since I used to live there.
Nice reference!
Heh. This story popped right after I finished 4,000 miles of Driving.
Texas to Orlando, Orlando to DC. DC up to Pittsfield Mass, then over to Chicago, and then down back to Texas.
I-10
I-95
I-80 somethings
I-55
I-40
I-30
I-35
In a Prius C, you can actually do that on ~$200 in fuel.
I can see how that would be real handy
Semi expected a hitchhiker or something at some point.
Woah... It's kind of surprising that this sweet little story almost makes me want a truck license... Even though I'm more of a biker xD
Just imagine spreading your wings while riding a bike on an open road at dusk? *w* ... Damn, now I wish we had wings...
Pretty sure I've driven that road. And if not, I've driven some just like it.
These are the stories that my soul craves.
As someone who plays far too much American Truck simulator, this story was thoroughly enjoyable.
It's a wise pegasus that can scent traffic storms as well as they can real ones. Working transit around DC, there is no day without a nightmare, but slipping through just before noon is wise.
This... This is going in the firm "To Read" selection.
9760780
Right up there with you with my own econobox! Even with a notably reduced range (Seriously thinking it's related to the usual direct injection carbon deposit issue of the intake valves, so she's getting a catch can installed soon) and driving her on E0 91+, I'm looking around a mere $325 in fuel for 4k mi.
Can't wait to see just how (in)expensive the upcoming grand tour of ~7-8k miles is going to be here, but after just getting the hour count return of being around 6-7 days of just driving, some of the desired sights and over 1k might be cut back out of the needing to take 3 consecutive weeks off to make it so...
Always astounded by your quiet / simple fics.
I KNEW IT! Truck-chan, the primary transportation device for the majority of Isekai protagonists, is driven by a pony!
9761960
Isekai protagonists need to stop stepping in front of 40 ton paperweights.
The greatest trucker pegasus story ever devised by man
9760381
The truck drivin' song!
Ponies on Earth in transit between A and B somehow just works.
That sense of wonder and weirdness when you take the pony out of her dimension but leave the pony essence in the pony, so to speak. A mundane human job seen from familiar yet still a little bit alien eyes. I'll never tire of these stories of yours.
Not going to ask if that is actually a thing. No.
It's wonderful how the perception of this sentence changes in light of who the protagonist is.
Love how this final sentence goes full pony and leaves you with a smile on your face. Adorable familiar weirdness. Also, I'd love to be able to scout a motorway parking lot like that. Thanks for this cute story ;)
She's been driving all night,
Hooves wet in the wheel!
Radar Love in my head reading this...
9759677
As do I. Perhaps once I get caught up with other stuff, I can write a sequel.
9759682
She does, but not if it’s too flat and boring.
And from what I remember, that’s a good vista. Been a long time since I’ve been to Colorado, though.
9759701
I can’t help it; seems like I have to drive on the Ohio Turnpike to get most places that are fun.
9759707
I’ve flown over that before, it did look pretty flat from above.
9759739
Probably most of them, honestly.
It’s kinda gone full circle, now, too. Celefin was somewhat inspired to write those stories because of Turnpike, and now we’re back on the Ohio Turnpike again.
And it’s not a stereotype if it’s true. :P
Thank you!
This is something that every writer needs to realize. It’s always the little things.
9759782
Truth is, I had to look on a map, and you’re of course right, Nova Scotia isn’t an island, even though I thought it was. Probably getting it mixed up with Prince Edward’s Island. Just the same, I feel that’s one of those things that’s better left wrong, ‘cause it’s a good moment for a laugh and/or hasty consultation of an atlas.
Thank you! Those are the stories I love the most, both reading and writing.