Hi there, I'm Lale Arakoglu, and today on Women Who Travel, we have a dispatch from a truck driver.

She talks about the freedom of the open road, as well as the risk that she takes along the way.

Desiree has been delivering loads on long-haul routes since 2007.

Her roots have taken her to 48 states.

My name is Desiree Wood, and I am a long-haul truck driver.

What led me to this profession was as a child, we took a lot of road trips.

My mother was always taking us somewhere and she would not talk a lot.

So I started looking out the window and counting the mile posts. It was like my time for daydreaming

and thinking about all kinds of, you know, big ideas on those road trips. I also kind of

memorize the roads. I love maps, all the junctions and all the legend on the map.

And so I always had a love of the road. And when I moved out on my own, I traveled across the

country many times in a CJ7 Jeep, in a Hyundai itself, with the dogs, with the kids, and just going on a road trip, like, we're going

somewhere. I loved it. So when kids were growing up, I was like, what am I going to do now with

them gone? You know, like, I don't have a reason to come home. And I was having a lot of changes,

the emptiness syndrome, the midlife, you know, depression, all of that.

And I actually did become homeless.

And during that time, one of the things that was really bugging me was where do I fit in the world?

Where do I belong?

What should I do with myself to use my skills the best possible?

And that's how I found trucking.

I always found the road to be like very therapeutic for me.

Like driving just makes all my thoughts that are scattered all over the place get in order.

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