“Mile Marker”

Red, white and 'Little Blue': The story of owner-operator Raiko Graveran Bobbi McGee Nov 7, 2025 Updated Nov 10, 2025 Owner-operator Raiko Graveran might be the "nicest dude in all of trucking," a version of which has been said by more than one truck showgoer who's found him and his 1995 Freightliner FLD 120 parked up. Here he's showing off fairly recent wins at the Old Town Rig Down event in Nacogdoches, Texas. Look for Graveran out at the  Stars, Stripes and White Lines event this week in Atlanta . All photos by the author of this story, Bobbi McGee Cuba, 2008: A 27-year-old Raiko Graveran is fighting the current and the waves risking it all to cross the sea on a wooden raft toward his dream of American freedom. We sat in his truck, a beautiful  1995 Freightliner FLD  Overdrive  previously featured at this link . He openly admitted he’d once illegally immigrated from Cuba dreaming of choice, freedom and opportunity. The risks were great -- he could be immedi...

 “He is already up, the 3am darkness before the dawn is his only peace, the rest of his 14 hour day will be organized chaos, a wanted product by an unwanted man. He is often treated sub human. He rolls on down the highway dodging cars full of distractions with his focus on keeping you safe. Eyes on the mirrors eyes on the road, eyes everywhere trying to deliver the load. He is the American economy on wheels, a product but not a person.”  #HardShellLife

 As a trucker’s wife I face unique challenges on my own, but over the years I have learned to overcome most of them. Tonight we are discussing a rarely mentioned challenge but it’s right here nonetheless. I’m talking about the mid week melancholy that often comes over you when your driver is still out on the road, but you expect them home over the weekend. When the middle of the week slows down to a crawl and it is still days before they come in off the road. At that point, it’s been days or weeks since you’ve  seen one another, and no matter what modern society says, a video chat on a smartphone is no substitute for human interaction. When your driver calls home, you want to catch up on things, and try to be positive. There is nothing worse than feeling sorry for yourself, being negative or adding additional pressure on someone who is working away from home and probably already feeling guilty for all the things they have missed. They focus in on those old “to-do” list items t...

  Monteagle & Marilyn – The story of John & Marilyn McCormick You just never know who you will meet at a truck show or the story you will uncover while looking at trucks. This time I was in Henderson, Kentucky at the “Truckers Helping Hands,” Chrome & Light Benefit Truck Show. It was here in the scorching August sun that I met Owner Operator John McCormick and his wife Marilyn. It is not very often you run into a working pneumatic vacuum tanker at a truck show but there it was, his 2021 Kenworth W900L black metallic paint sparkling in the sweltering heat with a mean drop visor and stainless-steel deck plates. Peeking under the hood sat a Cummins X15 with an Eaton 18 speed topped off by 3:36 rears. Beneath all the chrome the custom black and gold looked remarkably familiar to me, asking him he smiled and said, “her name is Bandit,” which clicked with me immediately.   John started officially trucking on his own at 21 years old after growing up watching his dad, ...

The new ‘old school’  by Bobbi McGee  – Cottons Livestock Hauling                                                                                             Nowadays debating seems to dominate social media. It doesn’t take very long to pick up on the issues within the trucking industry. Drivers get fired up over paper log versus ELD, pre-emission versus compliant trucks or plastic trucks instead of heavy or OBS square body trucks over aerodynamic fleet trucks. There are many examples and personal opinions clogging up the internet today, even something like your attire or preferred footwear can spark a debate. What about another perspective, the new ‘old school’ trucker. Owner Ope...

Back from the brink by Bobbi McGee                                                                                            Standing in the hot July sun on Main Street in Miami, Oklahoma I could hear the excitement in his voice as Pat Ford showed me picture after picture of his 1976 Peterbilt 359 which he resurrected from the dead. Back during the bicentennial of ’76 this standard white Peterbilt day cab rolled off the assembly line as one of the first produced in its class but would not be discovered by Pat, in the weeds of a California field, until ye...

The story of Paul & Denise; Walking through the parking lot with the smell of diesel in the blustery air, looking over the remaining row of trucks, many with chicken lights still ablaze, gave me a pang of sadness because Mid America Trucking Show 2023 was at an end. It had been an exciting weekend of big rigs, great music, and making new friends. It was at that moment I knew I had to return next year because I still wanted to hear one more artist I had missed. It was then I picked up on a song faintly in the air, walking toward the sound, I took a few last pictures as I began to recognize the melody. Smiling to myself I wondered who was playing my kind of music, which is to say “songwriters” music. There is something to be said about authenticity and the ability to tell a story set to music. A trucker standing by this Great Dane stainless trailer with soft light streaming down toward us made eye contact with me as I asked, “Are you listening to Long Haul Paul?” He shook his head, “...

***UPDATE*** ***UPDATE*** ***UPDATE***UPDATE  They say life can change in an instant ;  this is unfortunately something The Ashley Family can attest to.  Six-year-old, Karson Ashley,  had been struggling with sickness and tests in March of 2025 confirmed  a rare  f orm of  “fusion”  leukemia,  referred to as Mixed-Phenotype Acute Leukemia or MPAL .  Karson is the son of Eastview, Kentucky’s Cody Ashley, who is an over the roa d  truck driver for Michael Cain Trucking  out of Big  C lifty, Kentucky  and mother, Danni Proctor.  Mike  Cain is the Great Grandpa of Karson who comes from a long line of grain & feed haulers.  When your Dad dy d rives a big purple Peterbilt, a kid like Karson can’t help but light up at the   sight of all that chrome and s teel.  “Karson calls it “his truck,” said  Billy Ashley, lovingly  r eferred  to as “ PawPaw ”  by Karson.   As he spok...