At home on the road - couple share story of cross-country driving

By Dolores Harrington
Published: Monday, May 5, 2008 12:28 PM CDT
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After years of driving for a living, the Connells are prepared to travel in their motor home, and eventually visit Alaska. The dogs, Butch and Dodger, will go with them. Photo by Dolores Harrington

For more than 50 years they've done nearly everything together - from raising ostriches to long-distance truck driving.

Lowell and Sarah Connell retired in January from their last job. They had been driving a truck for Dillards since 1996. "I got my CDL (commercial drivers license) in 1993," Sarah said. "Lowell taught me to drive.

"We had been farming since 1967, and we had a trucking company from 1980-1990." They had a farm at Richwoods, south of Arkadelphia. Their chief crop was soybeans, but they raised some other things, too, including the ostriches. "We farmed 2,000 acres," Lowell said. They owned 200 acres and leased the rest. They had three combines and five tractors.

After Sarah got her license, they drove for Thomas National Transportation. "We went to Target stores in Texas and Oklahoma." They began driving for Dillards in August 1996. Husband-and-wife teams are not so unusual these days. "There's a lot more couples driving than there used to be."

They covered most of the country while driving the Dillards truck, which pulled two trailers (pigs). "We went to stores in Boise, Idaho; Bronx, N.Y.; Long Island; Miami; El Paso; Los Angeles; Stockton, Calif.; Sante Fe; Arizona and everywhere in between.

"If we were going to a store and there was nothing to pick up, they'd send us to the vendors to pick up a load. Sometimes it might be a whole load of gift boxes or paper bags."

They also went to the company's distribution centers in Phoenix, Fort Worth, Louisville, Valdosta, Ga., Salisbury, N.C., and Little Rock. "Sometimes we'd pick up something in LA and take it to North Carolina." They were allowed a certain number of hours to get from one place to the next. For example, it is considered a 40-hour trip from Phoenix to Salisbury, N.C. "They'd allow us about 48 hours," Sarah said. They were paid by the mile.

They got their sleep in the truck unless they had a long layover. "If we had to wait a few hours for a load, we'd find a place to park and sleep in the truck." They ate most of their meals in the truck, but planned stops about every 20-25 hours to have a proper meal in a restaurant.

The company covered all costs for the truck. "The only expense we had was to occasionally polish the tanks, just to look pretty." She said the aluminum gas tanks looked better shined and were easier to clean with polish on them. "We often washed the truck ourselves."

When asked about scary situations during her trucking days, Sarah only thought of two occasions. "I pulled off an exit, and I was going to stop and let Lowell drive." She hadn't chosen a good place to stop, and she continued up an incline. Another truck came up as she pulled over, and they collided. "It broke my front axle loose." No one was injured, and both trucks were repaired in a day, "but it scared me to death," she said.

"I had a few blowouts," she said, "but I'd hear it and pull over and call someone to fix it. We carried a spare." They had to be sure they stopped in places where the truck could be turned around. "You can't back up with two trailers - at least not very far." On two occasions, they were in places where the truck couldn't be turned. That necessitated unhooking the back trailer, moving it out of the way, turning the truck and hooking the trailer back up.

"When I was driving for TNT, I passed a John Deere truck and a pickup came around me on the right and cut in." The driver lost control and rolled the truck. The John Deere driver thought she had hit the pickup, but she hadn't. Fortunately, there were no serious injuries. Given their lack of serious accidents, Sarah said, "I emphatically believe that God was riding with us."

Sarah said they didn't find the driving boring. "We had the XM radio, and it went from coast-to-coast." They could listen to music, talk shows, comedy, almost any kind of entertainment.

When one of them drove, the other slept. "When we first started driving, we worked four (hours) and four, and then we changed to five and five. Then they changed the law, and you had to spend eight hours in the sleeper and take 10 hours off at a time."

Sarah said she was able to sleep well in the truck, but Lowell didn't do so well. "You're always moving," he said. "For me that was the hardest part of driving a truck - trying to get to sleep." He admitted that he didn't sleep well at home either. "It's not my best thing."

The Connells shared the driving equally, except in one area. "I only drove home once," Sarah said. Lowell had always driven home, but on one occasion she offered to drive. It turned out that Lowell needed that last driving shift to relax him, so he never let her drive home again.

It wasn't hard for them to work so closely together, Sarah said. "I would not have done it by myself or with anyone else. He has always been so caregiving of me, and never asked more of me than I could give." They celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary last November. They married young. "We were both 17," she said.

Lowell has a slightly different take on their being together constantly, but he said it was fine. "When I was driving, she was sleeping. We were only together when we were switching trailers or when we were going somewhere we didn't know." Sarah was the navigator, and Lowell said he just went where she told him to.

The Connells decided about three years ago that they would retire around the time of their 50th anniversary in 2007. The company knew they planned to leave, but they were going to attend the semi-annual safety meeting in Little Rock in January and turn in their keys.

In the spirit of doing things together, they both developed problems that required surgery. Lowell had a hernia repair last Dec. 18 at Baptist Health Medical Center-Arkadelphia. Dr. Lawson P. McNary performed the surgery.

Sarah had been feeling unwell, and in January she learned that she would have to have her gall bladder removed. That was complicated by the fact that she had an infection (pancreatitis) that had to be cleared up before the surgery. After eight days in the hospital, the infection was gone, and McNary performed her surgery lapriscopically. She was able to go home that same afternoon.

McNary didn't have a problem with the surgery, Sarah said, but he did have a new experience. She had learned years before that her heart was on the right side. She has a condition called situs inversus, which means that all of her major visceral organs are reversed or mirrored from their normal positions.

Her family physician told McNary about her condition, and he was prepared. She was, however, his first patient with the condition. He told her she was in good company and mentioned a couple of well-known persons who have situs inversus.

The Connells have plans for how they'll spend their retirement years. They have a large motor home, and will travel, including a trip to Alaska. They will be accompanied by a couple from Little Rock - in their own motor home. That couple still drive for Dillards, but will take time off to go to Alaska.

Lowell said he started truck driving when he was a teenager, and he wanted to go to Alaska. "When I was a kid, I wrote Chambers of Commerce in Alaska, trying to get a load." He wanted to take his truck, which had no air-conditioning, no power steering and no radio, and pick up a load in Alaska.

He did hear from some of the people he contacted. "They thought it was too risky for a kid just starting out," but the trip has been his dream since he was 18.

The last truck the Connells drove had an automatic transmission. It was a 2000 model, and they put more than 1 million miles on it. They liked it so much that they kept turning down new trucks that were offered to them.

Driving became harder and harder as the years passed, Sarah said. "The one thing that made it worse was the traffic. It got so much worse."

Nevertheless, they plan to see Alaska, and on the way back they'll visit relatives in California. Maybe they'll rack up a million miles on the motor home eventually.