Millie's American Truck Simulator Travels

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The bad news: I had to cancel that trip before we made it anywhere near Santa Fe, which leaves this thread with a disappointing start.

The good news: Rolling back to version 1.53 seems to have fixed my graphical and performance issues, at least for now. I drove around Los Angeles for about two in-game hours and everything seemed OK.

When I get bored later tonight or tomorrow I will start a new job and we can start our little travelogue over again.

In the meantime, please appreciate this hilarious accident in which I backed up out of a wrong turn without looking, hit a cop car with my truck, and sent it flying to bash into a Dodge Charger in the adjacent lane.

please give me a CDL in real life I am a responsible driver

Imicow

at least it was only a cop car

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The guy in the Dodge is probably not too happy with me, though.

I also love the blue car that came up behind all of this and just stopped in the middle of the road. Because what the hell would you do in that situation? Call the police? The police are already there!

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Now that we’ve rolled the game back to an earlier version, we’ve had to reload a much older save file. Effectively, we’ve found ourselves abruptly transported to a different location in both space and time.

(Side note: I strongly suspect an executive at SCS Software pressured the devs to rush out version 1.54 before it was quite ready so as not to delay the release of the Missouri map expansion DLC that requires the newer version. Here’s to hoping they work out the issues soon.)

Los Angeles, CA to Seattle, WA – Day 1

Sunday, 2:30 PM
Los Angeles, CA

Anyone want to go to the Pacific Northwest? Well, too, bad, I do! And I’m in luck, because the Kenworth dealership here in LA has a shipment of trucks bound for Seattle! I hope they won’t be offended that I’m hauling them with my Western Star and not a Kenworth…

Take a good look at the LA skyline, friends, ’cause we’re not gonna be here long!

The route from Los Angeles to Seattle is a pretty straightforward one: We’re just gonna stay on northbound Interstate 5 for a long, long time.

I suppose, given that we are driving not one but four trucks at the moment, we should take the signed truck route.

Interstate 5 as it exists today largely follows the path of long-since-decommissioned US 99. This is one of the few places where the two routes diverged. This stretch of the former US 99 is now California 99. We’re going to stick with I-5, however.

We’ve got quite a ways to go to reach Seattle, but for now, let’s just appreciate the beautiful Sunday evening sunset.

No ’80s song this time. I’ve decided we only get an ’80s song when we stop to rest for the night…which will probably be the next update.

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I had forgotten I had come up with a…creative way to shorten the company name “Millie’s Freight Transport”

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Picking up where we left off! It’s about 7:30 PM on Sunday as we roll past Buttonwillow, CA on Interstate 5.

Aw, man, I feel sorry for that poor truck driver. His day is probably ruined.

Nice try, my mans. I see you back there. You’re not gonna get me like your buddy got that other guy.

It’s about 10:30 PM, and we’re getting kind of sleepy, so we’ll be briefly departing from Interstate 5 onto California 152 to find somewhere to stop for the night.

Heh, another SUBTLE “tourism billboard”.

And so we find ourselves at a “Fusion” brand truck stop off California 152 just outside Santa Nella, California. It’s 11:00 PM on Sunday and we’re settling in for the night.

We’ve probably got at least another day and a half to go before we reach Seattle…how far will we get tomorrow?

TO BE CONTINUED

Millie’s ’80s song of the night is “We Belong” by Pat Benatar, 1984.

This one I actually picked out on my own, unlike most of these, which are gonna be @C. R. Ravenswood’s picks.

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If anyone was curious, almost all of the in-game truck stops do, in fact, correspond to truck stops in the real world.

The “ARON Travel Center” where we previously stopped on Broadway Avenue is Boise is, in the real world, a TA Travel Center on Broadway Avenue in Boise.

Likewise, the “Fusion Travel Center” off CA 152 outside Santa Nella where we’re staying tonight corresponds to a Petro Travel Center off CA 152 outside Santa Nella, though I can neither confirm nor deny whether we are staying there tonight.

When the game was first released in 2016, it didn’t have nearly this level of verisimilitude, but subequent revisions have made it more and more realistic, and my autistic self is here for it!

Chihaya Anon

Your truck is really cute, Lennirin!

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Thank you!! The old was was pink, but this one is metallic pink!!!!!

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Los Angeles, CA to Seattle, WA – Day 2

Monday, 9:00 AM
Fusion Travel Center
Santa Nella, California

Yawn Well, I’m glad we’ve had a good night’s rest! Time to get back on the road…

As mentioned previously, we’re going to be sticking to Interstate 5 all the way to Seattle.

…Or, well, that was my plan. It looks like I-5 is closed due to an accident. We’ll have no choice but to take Interstate 580 from this junction.

Thankfully, our detour is pretty simple. We’ll just be taking I-580 to I-80 eastbound, then rejoining I-5.

Our new route takes us right through Oakland, so I guess we’re doing some California sightseeing this morning.

Onto I-80.

California, both in game and in the real world, has some delightfully convoluted highway interchanges.

Oh, hey, this route takes us over the Oakland Bay Bridge!

…which is, of course, a toll bridge. Mildly annoying, seeing as how our intended route was free.

Alright, here we go! We’ve finally made it back to I-5.

Everything should be smooth sailing from—huh?

you have got to be kidding me

OK, let’s not panic. This isn’t as bad as it seems. We know it’s only the ramp to I-5 that’s closed, not the highway itself. All we need to do is stay on I-80 eastbound, get off at the next exit, then get back on I-80 westbound to head back to the junction with I-5.

It’s just a shame that this adds another two hours to our travel time.

Alright. OK. No more nonsense. We’ve finally made it back to I-5.

We good? We’re good. Whew.

It’s about 7:00 PM The sun is beginning to set in the western sky and I’m starting to get tired.

As luck would have it, we’ve been instructed to stop at a weigh station facility…which happens to have plenty of space reserved for overnight parking!

And thus concludes the exceptionally frustrating second day of our little trip. We didn’t even make it out of California.

Hopefully tomorrow we won’t face quite as many (literal) roadblocks.

TO BE CONTINUED

In commemoration of the frequent detours and turnarounds we’d had to make today, Millie’s song of the night is “Stand” by R.E.M., 1989.

Stand in the place where you live, now face north
Think about direction, wonder why you haven’t before

Imicow

do you actually sleep in that cab or is that just where you keep your candy reserves

C. R. Ravenswood

Imicow ¿Por qué no los dos?

Imicow

fair enuff

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Los Angeles, CA to Seattle, WA – Day 3

Tuesday, 7:00 AM
California Highway Patrol Cottonwood Enforcement Facility
Cottonwood, California

Perhaps we’ve slept too early. We now have only 15 hours left until our delivery deadline—and only 12 hours before we’ll need to rest again. We’re going to have to get to Seattle very quickly…especially considering we haven’t even left California yet.

Once again, back onto I-5.

I’ll admit, this trip isn’t really interesting enough to have been liveblogged like this. We’re staying to the same highway the entire time, only stopping for rest and inspections. I promise we’ll do something much more interesting next time.

At least this stretch of I-5 is reasonably scenic.

Hey! We’re finally to the Oregon state line!

Naturally, as soon as we cross the state line, we’re asked to stop for another DOT inspection.

I’m not gonna lie, I started speeding for most of the rest of the trip. We didn’t have time to take another rest break, and I wanted to get our delivery finished before we fell asleep at the wheel.

i am a responsible driver please give me a cdl in real life

It’s about 12:30 PM as we pass through Eugene.

It seems like every city on the west coast has overly elaborate highway interchanges. Midwestern cities twice the size of Eugene don’t have junctions this complicated.

Around 2:30 PM, we enter the Portland area. We’re so close, friends!

There’s a interesting story behind this, I’m certain! But right now all I care about is that these idiots are blocking the right lane.

Onwards to Seattle!

Another of those convoluted interchanges. I’ll admit it feels less out of place in Portland than it did in goddamn Eugene.

Oh, it’s raining now. I have heard that it rains a lot in the Pacific Northwest.

We cross the Columbia River, and with that, we enter the state of Washington!

Still a ways to go to along I-5.

Tacoma, everybody!! We’re so close!!

It’s just before 6:00 PM as we finally enter Seattle, marked by the start of a variable speed limit zone.

(I am still speeding, naturally.)

Departing I-5 for the last time! On this trip, I mean. It’s not like the highway is being demolished or something.

convoluted interchange convoluted interchange convoluted interchange

Finally, about 6:30 PM, we reach our destination, the Port of Seattle…

…where we deposit our cargo amongst the massive stacks of shipping containers.

Thus concludes our journey.

Tuesday, 7:00 PM
Port of Seattle
Seattle, Washington

That was honestly a lot more boring than I expected, so I want to do something special for our next trip. How about a Special Transport mission? 👀

Millie’s ’80s song of the night is “Pour Some Sugar on Me” by Def Leppard. Not because it has any relevance to today’s journey, but just because it was the first ’80s song that popped into my head and I figured it’s as good to leave here as any.

C. R. Ravenswood

livin’ like a lover with a red iPhone

Imicow

I wanna stop at Donut Planet

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Special Transport: Pendleton, OR to Burns, OR

To make up for our last trip having been so boring, let’s try a special transport job. Special transport jobs involve carrying oversize loads, and there are a few special rules:

We must keep to the designated route—no rest stops, fuel stops, or other diversions.
We’ll have both a lead escort vehicle (for today’s job, an Oregon state trooper) and a rear escort vehicle.
We must keep our truck between the two escort vehicles at all times.
The police will be stopping traffic for us at intersections and junctions, so we will be disregarding all stop signs and traffic lights.

Got it? Cool! Let’s go!

It’s a rainy Wednesday morning in Pendleton, Oregon, where we’re loading up our cargo: a prefab house to be delivered to a construction site in Burns.

Time to hit the road!

Our front escort vehicle deliberately straddles the centerline to “nudge” oncoming traffic out of our way…

…and additional police vehicles are stationed at junctions stopping traffic for us to pass.

They’ve even stopped traffic on the freeway so we don’t have to attempt to merge.

This is the only clear picture I managed to get of the rear escort vehicle, if you were wondering what it looks like.

Is it wrong that I don’t feel sorry for all these people we’re inconveniencing?

Our little motorcade, viewed head-on.

Carrying on down US 395.

Did they make those two trucks pull off the road so we could navigate that curve more easily? That’s kind of funny.

In case you forgot: We’re driving an entire house around.

(Out of character: I should probably file a bug report for the misspelling of “Prairie City” on these signs at the junction of US 26 and US 395.)

Navigating some more tight curves. These would be harrowing even with a standard trailer, let alone a freakin’ house.

Though, apparently, the police have been holding oncoming traffic for us to make it a little easier, which is appreciated.

Also, it’s stopped raining.

And so we arrive in Burns. We’re almost to our destination.

I can’t stop laughing at this guy on a side street trying to take pictures of our motorcade with his phone.

You two, uh…you two parked a little close there, wouldn’t you say?

Finally, we arrive at our destination. It wasn’t a particularly long journey, and admittedly wasn’t as interesting to document as I thought it would be, but hopefully you all have enjoyed it anyway.

And that’s it!

Bonus: Look how much traffic has been backing up behind us once we entered Burns. Bahahahahaha

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Millie’s Day Off, I Guess – Burns, Oregon

Now that we’ve successfully delivered that cute little blue house, let’s head around the corner to the truck stop to get some “upgrades” done to our truck.

(It’s crazy just how closely these in-game truck stops are modeled on their real-world equivalents!)

Anyways, I’m a narcissist. It’s time to show off my big pink truck!!

You didn’t think you were gonna get out of here without seeing the inside of my truck too, right?

Anyways, we’re done here in Burns, so I’mma go park the truck at MILFTRANS’s nearest garage—which happens to be in Bend—and, I dunno, go to the mall with @Anonus or something.

Peace, out!

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Millie’s Day Off, Part 2 – Bend, Oregon

One of the features introduced in newer versions of ATS is the Used Truck Market. Used trucks are rated on a scale of ⭐️ to ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️, with any truck ranking below ⭐️⭐️⭐️ classified as not roadworthy and unable to be put in service with a hired driver.

So, naturally, I enjoy buying 1-⭐️ trucks and drive them around just for fun.

Here at the MILFTRANS garage in Bend, I’ve kept a 1-⭐️ old Volvo VNL 2014 I bought for next to nothing.

We’re not hauling a load, so there’s nowhere in particular to go. So why don’t we just head towards the Volvo dealership in Eugene to have our truck assessed? I don’t plan to put this truck back in service, but I’m interested to see what it would cost to bring it up to standards.

This is somehow even worse than I expected. The recommended repairs would cost us $63,000 and the truck still would not be up to standard to return to service without further restoration work. No thanks.

We don’t have enough time to get back to the garage in Bend before I’d need to sleep, but thankfully, the Volvo dealership has an overnight parking area, so we can just rest here.

The following morning, we’re up at the break of dawn and ready to head back to Bend.

The return trip is uneventful.

Well, except for the part where I got fined for flying past a state trooper at 80 mph in a 60 mph speed limit. That was, uh, interesting.

And that’s it! I promise our next update will actually involve some kind of freight hauling, not just me dinking around with the various truck tweaks. Stay tuned!!

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Steamboat Springs, Colorado to Huron, California – Part 1

What is up, my dudes! It’s ya girl Millie, back on the road after several months of basically forgetting this thread existed!

Today Millie—remember, that’s my truck driver persona, as distinct from “Millennium” myself—finds herself at a truck service shop in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.

Thankfully, we don’t have to go far to find our next job. Immediately adjacent to the truck repair shop is a warehouse for a logistics company called Venture. We’ll be hauling a reefer full of butter to Huron, California.

Steamboat Springs seems like a nice enough little town. The kind where you find cute little houses directly across from truck repair shops and industrial distribution centers.

Construction zone! Finally the light for westbound US 40 is green. It feels like we’ve been waiting forever!

We haven’t gone all that far, but we’re just about to run out of hours, so let’s pull off at this admittedly very primitive roadside rest area along US 40 and call it a night.

~~Carly Robin Ravenswood’s~~ Millie’s ’80s Song of the Night is “I Can Dream About You” by Dan Hartman!

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