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For Christians, Easter is a time of reflection, gratitude and deep faith that goes to the very heart of Christianity. For truck drivers who celebrate Easter on the road, it’s also time for feasting!

We asked our truck driver community on Facebook whether they are celebrating Easter on the road or at home this year, and the poll results so far are included on the left.

For the truck drivers who are celebrating Easter over the road, here is a story of a truck driver couple who are making the most out of the holiday on the road this year—even planning to maintain their same family traditions in their truck.

Mike Wolford and Emily Allen are among the truck drivers preparing an Easter meal in the truck this year.

The couple is looking forward to commemorating the day.

“I feel very blessed to be where I’m at right now,” says Allen. “For me, Easter is about celebrating Jesus and the fact that he is risen. I want to make something special, something I don’t make every day, because it is a celebration for us.”

Easter celebration

This year, Allen will make a meal that reminds her of her upbringing: pineapple-glazed ham.

“I’m going to bake a ham with brown sugar and pineapple, just like Momma used to do,” she says. Allen laughs at the thought. “It’ll be a whole lot smaller than Momma used to do, though.” She’ll cook it in one of her kitchen standbys, her Lunchbox oven. She’ll accompany it with mashed potatoes, corn, beets, and biscuits with melted butter.

For Wolford, an avid griller, Easter is about celebrating Jesus. But it took a woman’s touch to inspire him to celebrate Easter on the road with a special roadside meal.

“Before Emily joined me out here a year ago, cooking on the truck was always about quick and simple,” he says. “I never would have considered doing what we do now. I like the idea of a special Easter dinner, but I would not have made one if I were by myself.”

Allen is a great cook, preparing dinner in the truck at least six days a week.

A typical meal Emily Allen and Mike Wolford make together on their truck.

In her kitchen lineup is everything from an Aroma cooker to an electric skillet.

“Somewhere along the line, I developed a passion for cooking,” says Allen, who learned mostly from her mom. She sharpened her culinary skills further while working at a Michigan restaurant in her teens.

“I like good food,” she says, “whether it’s on Easter or any other day.”

We’re always interested to hear how truckers celebrate Easter from the road. Join our community here to share your story!

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You may have heard it said “Watch and learn.” For truck driver Craig Grubb, barbecue is an entirely different matter—one where watching and learning is serious business.

Grubb’s Rub

“I watch the Pitmasters shows on TV. That’s where I learned to blend my own spices,” says Grubb, who also scours recipes online routinely.

If the truth be told, Grubb, a company driver for Smith Transport out of Roaring Springs, Pa., is a talented pitmaster in his own right. He makes his own barbecue sauces, experiments with sauces he finds at mom-and-pop shops and even created his own secret dry rub blend. In fact, the recipe is so secret, he won’t share it with anyone.

Grubb loves hosting pig roasts for his friends in the summer.

Firing up the Barbie

Grubb does however confess he often coats his meats with yellow mustard before adding a layer of his dry rub to them. The vinegar base in the mustard helps tenderize the meat, explains Grubb, who knows a thing or two about barbecue.

And he should. After all, he’s barbecued for more than 20 years. An aficionado of smoking everything from pork ribs and brisket to game birds and pork shoulder, Grubb immerses himself in recipes and research and prides himself on his technique.

“Everyone barbecued when I grew up, so I started doing it myself,” recalls Grubb, a CDL driver for 30 years, born into the business.

“Barbecuing is a big hobby,” Grubb adds.

Grubb’s smoked pork shoulder

At the Grubb household, big hobbies call for big gatherings.

Whether it’s a full-on pig roast or not, Grubb fires up the smoker, invites friends and family over to share in the feast, and a party ensues. In addition, Grubb brings leftovers on the road with him.

Grubb shares advice about smoking meats, too. To keep your meats from drying out, continually fill up your water pan, he says. Always smoke your meats “low and slow” at about 220 degrees. Have patience. Also, perhaps most importantly, “have friends willingly try what you cook,” Grubb advises.

“Having friends makes up a big part of it,” he says. A sense of community comes together around barbecue.”

Smoked corned beef

Also, Grubb recalls fondly the time last year he smoked two pork shoulders and built a big bonfire for friends and family in attendance.

“If you come to one of my barbecues and you go away hungry, it’s your own fault,” he says.

With Memorial Day right around the corner, we want to know what type of cooking gets you fired up, drivers. Connect with us here and share your specialty with us for a chance to be featured on Drive My Way.

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Trucker Kevin Carter ate sushi one night and figured he could make his own sushi for a fraction of the cost. That was a year-and-a-half ago. Carter, a company driver for Titan Trucking in Canada, has been rolling sushi in his truck ever since.

“The key to making a good sushi roll is patience and perseverance,” Carter says. “You gotta make sure the rice is spread out evenly and it’s a nice, tight roll.”

Carter spreads the rice three-sixteenths of an inch thick and tops it with ahi tuna, salmon, mackerel, even swordfish.

Carter learned to roll sushi through trial and error and by watching online videos. He’s now so skilled that he rolls sushi about once a month.

Carter is self taught in much of what he does. He builds houses from the ground up, inks a great design, and cooks just about anything. At age 7, Carter cooked beef stroganoff for the first time. It sparked in him an interest in cooking that has lasted a lifetime.

He learned to cook from his mom as a youngster growing up in Calgary, Canada. “I’m a mama’s boy,” he says. “She instilled in me a quality set of morals and self esteem. She always wanted me to push myself and make myself better. And she succeeded.”

He Honed His Craft In The School of Hard Knocks

Carter obtained his GED in an unlikely place—the penitentiary. He worked in the kitchen there for three years and became a skilled baker. At 26, after his release, Carter attended culinary school and became a certified “Red Seal” chef, qualifying him to cook in Canadian hotels.

Before becoming a truck driver, the multi-talented Carter also owned a tattoo business for a couple of years. For the record, Carter has 39 tattoos, 34 of which he inked himself. He learned to tattoo in 1991, using himself as a canvas to perfect his skill.

“I was sitting there drawing one day and some guy came up to me and said, ‘I want you to ink that on me,’” Carter recalls. “It was fun, I was good at it, and I just stuck with it. Then, I started doing it for others. And, the more I did it, the more I liked it. The more I liked it, the better I got.”

One of the tattoos Carter has inked

Carter estimates he’s inked upwards of 30,000 tattoos, including 80 memorializing someone.

These days, he’s devoted to his CDL trucking job, but he still inks and does piercings for clients in his free time.

“I like driving,” he says. “It’s a good fit for me. I’m on the road for about three to five weeks at a time. I see so much of the country, so I’m able to scout out places where I’d like to buy land in retirement.”

Recently, Carter did buy land—eight acres on Nova Scotia’s Cape Breton Island. When he retires from his CDL trucking job, Carter plans to build an 850-square-foot house there that runs on solar power. He’ll hunt his own food and live off the grid. It’s a longtime dream of his 15 years in the making.

That’s the thing about Carter—he never stops dreaming.

He puts his dreams into action, too. “I’m constantly striving for knowledge,” he says. “If I’m not learning, I’m not living.”

The dream precedes the goal, drivers. What dreams are you working to make reality? Join our community here and tell us about it!

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