SCARY COOL SAD GOODBYE 75

An interview with Raven Myers, trucker/photographer queen of the Southwest.

All photos in this post courtesy of Raven Myers.

The coolest person on Twitter right now is @HighwayyChild, who appeared on my “For You” page sometime last month with a steady stream of gorgeously lonely-looking photos of the American Southwest, shot through the window of an 18-wheeler truck. When I came upon the profile, the display name said “Ray,” so I mistakenly assumed the photos were taken by some soulful trucker dude. Apparently I wasn’t alone. “Y’all think I’m a guy cuz my name is Ray and I’m a truck driver,” she posted back in March. “It’s literally a woman in a skirt in my pfp lmaoo.” The photographer, it turned out, was 31-year-old Raven Myers — lifelong Arizona native, longtime photographer, and for the past 3 ½ years, commercial trucker. For a couple years, Raven did over-the-road trucking, which took her all across the United States, away from home for weeks at a time and occasionally working 14-hour days. These days she does local trucking, hauling gypsum rock from the mines to the plant near her truck yard twice a day. (In her videos, the gypsum mine at sunrise appears to have been touched by God.)

On Raven’s Twitter, photos of crumbling motels and liquor stores, breathtaking rock formations, or abandoned basketball courts under moody desert skies intersperse with in-the-moment shots snapped along the highways of the West, in which the reflection of the window or a glimpse of the rearview mirror tells a story about the life of an American trucker. When I call her up on Wednesday, a couple hours before she heads to the truck yard for a work day which won’t end ‘til 11pm, she graciously answers my occasionally bone-headed questions about the realities of trucking, and finding time for art along the way. As a younger photographer, she used to think her hometown lacked the big, majestic vistas — “rainbows and waterfalls,” as she puts it. These days, she finds inspiration everywhere she looks: “Forgotten America. Old structures that are decaying. Places that used to have life and are now dead. I’ve learned to find beauty in almost anything now.”

When I first came across your Twitter, your display name was “Ray,” so I honestly just assumed you were a dude.

That’s why I changed it. I was like, “All these people think I’m just a dude trucker. I’m gonna put my regular name so they know I’m a woman.”

I feel like you’ve kinda been blowing up on Twitter lately!

Yeah, it’s kind of strange! I didn’t think people would care about my photos that much, especially quick snapshots from the road — I thought those would be the least likely to get any attention. You know, I don’t compose them or anything. I just drive down the road — I’m probably incriminating myself by saying this, but as I’m driving, I just pick up my camera and snap some shots. It’s just spur of the moment, what I see.

Well, that’s what I love about them. I love that they’re not so composed, and that you can see the window of the truck. When I try to take photos while I’m driving, they turn out so shitty. I don’t know how you do it!

Do you use a camera, or your phone?

Just my phone.

I’ve been doing photography for over 15 years, so I’m finally getting how to get the shot right, the settings. That plays a big part in getting the lighting right, and how you really see the scene. The phone camera doesn’t always do a good job in capturing what you’re seeing.

Where are you from?

I was born and raised, and still am in Arizona. I don’t know if I’ll ever leave.

So how long have you been a trucker, and how’d you get you into it?

I still consider myself kind of a newbie — I have 3 ½ years of experience. And though I’m pretty good at driving, and I’ve learned a lot, I still feel like there’s so much I don’t know, because it’s such a complex industry. I have a longtime friend who’s been a trucker for over ten years. I would tell him, “Hey, teach me how to drive!” because I saw he made pretty good money. I was a waitress, a cashier — minimum wage jobs you can’t live on, unfortunately. He would tell me, “Read the book and take the test,” but I was terrified. I knew nothing about driving a big truck. Finally I was just fed up with my little jobs and I said, screw it, I’m gonna take the permit test. Then I got into a school that was a three-week program, which is kinda crazy, if you think about it. People can lose their lives if you don’t do your job right, but in three to four weeks, you can get your license. But I did that, took the test, and got my license Christmas Eve of 2021. I’ve done over-the-road trucking, going all across the States, anywhere they want to send you. But for the past six months, I moved to local trucking, doing the same route back and forth, 80 miles one way, Monday through Friday.

Oh, that’s pretty cool. So you don’t have to be staying at truck stops and motels, you’re back home at the end of the night?

Actually, for over-the-road trucking it’s very rare for anyone to stay in a hotel. A lot of people think that, but actually, if you see the inside of a truck, they call them a sleeper cab. So in the front are your seats, and in the back you have a whole bed, and a lot of them have a bottom and a top bunk. The bed on the bottom can be folded into a table and chairs, so it’s kind of like a tiny motel on wheels. But I think most of us just throw a nice mattress over it. We’ll have a fridge, a lot of storage, a little closet. Some people put in microwaves and cooking tools, but I didn’t really add anything. I would just go to work, drive, and go to sleep at night. But now I get to sleep in my own bed and shower every night.

How long were you doing over-the-road?

So at first I didn’t actually drive with the company — he couldn’t get me on the insurance because I was too new. A lot of laws, and it was going to cost a lot of money to insure me. Me and my friend went and got another job where I was driving and he was basically my trainer. We did that for several months, and then I went back to the same company and had another partner, a female this time. We drove together several months, I left again, I went back for a third time, and that’s when I finally drove solo for the first time. I did that for almost a year. So that was a long way of saying that for 2 ½ years, I did over-the-road.

Did you like it better with a partner, or by yourself?

There’s pros and cons to both, but I did like being alone. That’s just the type of person that I am — I like being in my own space, no one to disturb me. I get to have the truck how I want, have it clean. I guess sometimes I did get lonely, but I’m okay being alone. When you drive with a partner, one of the cons is that the truck is always moving. I would drive days and my partner would drive overnight, so whenever my shift was done I would go to the back and go to sleep, but he would be driving. So I’d be trying to sleep in a truck that’s moving down the highway, and sometimes it was pretty difficult on those bumpy roads. But it was nice because I’d get off the truck a little more with a partner, whereas being alone I’d be a little more cautious — I wouldn’t get out of the truck at night, or leave the truck too long.

What’s the percentage of females in the industry? I feel like it shouldn’t make a difference, but you being a girl just makes it so much doper.

It definitely was rare for a long time, and it’s still a big majority male truckers. But when I was over-the-road, I would see a lot more females. I remember I stopped at a truck stop to fuel, and I think I counted either six or eight women fueling their trucks. So it’s becoming a little more common.

I think my idea of trucking is still very stuck in the ‘70s, where it’s like the last American cowboys, and there’s also this lot lizard culture. Is any of that the reality still?

Honestly, in the three years that I’ve been trucking, there’s only been one single woman that I thought might’ve been a lot lizard. But it could be because I stopped at the bigger truck stops where they tend to have security, lights, and cameras. I would assume if they’re out there still, they’d probably be at the smaller, more lowkey truck stops.

Do you have any crazy or scary road stories?

One of the craziest experiences was my first time driving in a snowstorm. That was up on I-40 in New Mexico going into Arizona, and there was a bad snowstorm. I should have stopped, but I just decided, I’m gonna keep driving. Once you’re out there, there might not be a truck stop or a rest area for, who knows, 100 miles. You could barely see in front of you, and I think I was going 35 miles an hour on a 75, that’s how bad it was. I started passing truck after truck after truck, wrecked off the side of the road or flipped over. The next day I saw on the news that there was a huge pile-up after I’d passed through.

What’s your work day like nowadays?

With this current job, it’s a lot more structured than over-the-road trucking. With OTR, everything was completely random. I might need to go pick up a load at midnight and get somewhere the next morning, so I would have to drive all night. Or I would get to pick something up and take my time over two days. But with this job it’s more like a 9-to-5. I live in a small town that’s an hour from the truck yard. I like to take my time getting there, check on my truck, make sure everything’s good. We don’t actually leave the yard until 2pm. Then I’ll make two runs: I’ll drive down to the mine, an hour and a half drive, pick up some gypsum rock. Right down the street from our truck yard is the plant, so I’ll drop the rock off at the plant. I’ll go back to the mine, do that again — two loads a day. And that takes 7-8 hours if everything goes smooth. Then post-tripping my truck, which is making sure everything’s good at the end of the day. I’ll get home about 11pm. So it’s kind of a long day. It’s a lot of work.

Is it good for your photography, driving that route? Like, you know exactly what you’re looking for.

Yeah, I drive that same road six times a day, so I definitely know the spots where I’m like, ooh, I wanna stop there and take some photos. But with this job, they’re super strict. It gets a little bit annoying at times. I don’t have a lot of time to stop and take some pictures, although I have — I stop for maybe two minutes, get a couple shots, and keep moving.

I was recently reading about how these tech companies are trying to launch self-driving trucks, basically this month. This one company is planning to launch commercial self-driving trucks in Texas this April, and then trying to expand into New Mexico and Arizona this year. Is this something that’s on your mind? 

Not exactly. When I first got in, I had people saying, “I don’t know why you’re doing that, because self-driving trucks are gonna take over.” I think maybe for some cases, but I don’t know — trucking is so complex. I’m just a dumb trucker, but I don’t see how that would work. There’s too many little things that can come up — like, what if the truck needs to reverse and get out of somewhere? All these little very specific situations that you have to maneuver in trucking, it seems really complicated for a robot to do. So I’m not really worried about it taking over soon. Maybe in the far future. Right now, I feel like it’ll be a long time before they take the trucking jobs.

Outside of trucking, do you have any favorite places in the Southwest to take photos?

I kinda like to photograph anything now. When I first started, I would think, “Oh, I can’t photograph anywhere, there’s nothing nice to photograph,” because I was looking for… I like to say “rainbows and waterfalls.” Over time, I’ve gotten into… I still don’t know what term or genre to call it, but I kinda just call it “American decay.” Forgotten America. Old structures that are decaying. Places that used to have life and are now dead. I’ve learned to find beauty in almost anything now. Of course I love the beautiful nature scenes — I went to Yellowstone a few years ago, and it was gorgeous. So of course I would love to go to places like that. But I live around a lot of mining towns, and I like to go there and photograph old decaying buildings. I can find something to photograph almost anywhere I go.

That’s my favorite. The rainbows and waterfalls are amazing, but what really gets me is exactly what you’re talking about — abandoned gas stations, old rusted cars. There’s just something about it that hits.

To me, it’s just… real life. I love that kinda stuff.

Any favorite photographers?

In no particular order… 

Brendon Burton

Natela Grigalashvili

“Stev”

You can find Raven’s photos on Twitter (@HighwayyChild) or IG (@ravenjademyers).

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