The People’s Convoy, Submitted by Wendi Strauch Mahoney

Independent journalist and Quite Frankly contributor, Wendi Strauch Mahoney, powerfully reflects on her life-changing time spent traveling with the patriotic convoy of truckers who set out to save the country.

By Wendi Strauch Mahoney

For three-plus weeks in February and March of 2022, I embarked on a cross-country trip with American truckers on a trek they called “The People’s Convoy.” I joined the convoy as an independent journalist, riding in the cab with a different trucker almost every day. Most of the other journalists and supporters had their own vehicles. However, I wanted to be in the seat next to them so I could listen to what they were thinking about our country, COVID mandates, their lives as truckers, and anything else they were willing to share with me.

In late February 2022, the COVID mandates under the Biden administration were still in full effect. Vaccine mandates were in place. For health care workers and the military, you either took the shot or you lost your job. Many businesses also required the shot.

Many small business owners were struggling or had to shut down altogether. I had friends whose businesses did not survive the issues with supply chain, rising costs, and employees who quit either because they didn’t want to take the shot or because they were too fearful to work. Many shifted to working from home. Many Americans felt frustrated, isolated, and lonely.

Truckers were among the few who were still expected to carry on as usual. As frustrated as the rest of us, they decided to take a stand which is why they took to the road as “The People’s Convoy”. Truckers were on the frontlines during COVID managing massive supply chain issues, delivering medical supplies, PPE, food, water, gasoline, and vaccines, among other goods. Industry data compiled during the pandemic showed strict vaccine mandates “would threaten the industry more than help it.” Their goal was to go to D.C. and make their voices heard on behalf of all Americans, hoping they would be able to put a stop to the madness that had in so many ways, shut down the country.

The People’s Convoy was a lesser known movement than the one in Canada. In fact, here in the U.S., it was a total media blackout. Not one network covered it. As a result, unless you were tuned in to alternative media or showed up in person along the way, you would never know there was an American convoy.

Motivated by the trucker protests against COVID mandates in Canada, hundreds of American truckers took off from Adelanto, California with a goal to reach the Hagerstown Speedway in Maryland, which we eventually did. It was in Hagerstown that the truckers would station themselves for many weeks while they held rallies and traveled to D.C. to speak with members of Congress about America’s COVID mandates. The journey started with the plans of these thirteen truckers pictured below:

Truckers are a special breed. They represent the best of America. They are hardworking. They help each other on the road. They seem to have uncommon common sense. They love America. A few lines from the Trucker’s code below ring true to me given what I experienced:

Be it known to all the people everywhere: The Trucker’s Code is dedicated to the families of the men and women of the road who steer the steel steeds.
Be thankful for your truck, your job, your family, and the earth. Don’t abuse any of these. Love your mate. Play with your children. Pray a little. Love a lot.
The Tire Tool: Judge and jury. Better to be judged by twelve than carried by six.
Work: Never saw a horse that couldn’t be rode. Never saw a rider that couldn’t be throw’d.
Be proud, truckers. Hold your heads high. You are the fabric that holds America together, and you are a child’s best friend.
It is the trucker who delivers the farmer’s crops to the grocer so children don’t go hungry.
It is the trucker who carries the fuel that keeps them warm.
It is the trucker who hauls the lumber to the carpenter to build the homes that keep them safe and secure.
And it is the trucker’s sacrifice of loneliness's y enduring empty nights and lonely miles, that ties America together, from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific.

What It Was Like Traveling with Truckers

We were up early– and most days on the road until dark. Since I was a solo, no-name reporter, I had to scramble every night to find a place to stay. Understand that many of the end-of-day stops were in the middle of nowhere. And day after day, I never knew where I would sleep or how I would get to my bed for the night. Especially in the beginning, I didn’t know anyone well enough to ask for favors. More importantly, there was no way I was going to be a pansy-assed prima donna with the guys and gals who drive trucks for 8 hours a day without using a bathroom.

Norman in San Jon, New Mexico

To give you a glimpse into what it was like, I’ll share just one of my many adventures. One night, I found a motel in an isolated part of New Mexico. Norman, a Brit who moved here decades ago, was the owner. I had called the motel and Norman offered to pick me up because it was a good 30 minutes away. Anyway, he picked me up at the Truckstop in his very beat-up pick-up truck. He was 90 years old, toothless, eccentric, and full of tales of his days with the merchant marines on a “boat with 300 homosexuals,” his words not mine…On the way back to his motel, he nearly ran us into a ditch running alongside the desolate two-lane highway. Nevertheless, I lived to talk about it. That’s Norman below.

Picture a drab tan and brown one-story motel, the kind you see on isolated stretches of the backroads of America. This one looked as though no one had stayed there for decades. It crossed my mind that I might never be seen again, and I spent a few tortured moments trying to figure out believable ways to bail. However, my decision was made much easier by the fact that I had no way to leave.

Norm brought me to his front office which also doubled as his storage room, kitchenette, broom closet and God knows what else. Hoarders have nothing on this guy. He mumbled his way through finding my room key, which was in a pile of other keys on a table. He then walked me over to the room.

Picture the gritty realism of a Cohen Brothers film and you’ve got the room I stayed in for a night. Late 50’s décor, brown and more brown, musty bed covers, dripping faucet and stained toilet. Kind of clean-ish. I made Norman promise there were no bedbugs. He dismissed it casually, telling me, “Oh yeah, don’t worry, we haven’t had bedbugs in a good three years.” It wasn’t the reassurance I needed to hear but at that point, I was there for the night, bedbugs or not.

While Norm’s motel was on the scarier end of overnight stays, there were several others that were memorable. And finding a place to stay was always one of the most challenging parts of the trip.

When you first ask a trucker if you can ride in his cab, you aren’t really thinking about the fact that you are essentially a guest in his home. Truckers bunk down in their trucks. Used to going miles without a bathroom stop, they keep handy a bucket or a discarded plastic bottle to pee in.

In addition, we were traveling in a convoy, as a pack. So, I decided early on the only way to survive a long day on the road without peeing was to go without drinking or eating until we arrived. The convoy always decided as a group where the stops would be and most days we never pulled over until we reached our destination. I was not going to be the person to ask the convoy to find a bathroom.

It also didn’t dawn on me until several days into the trip that I could be considered a bother to them. I was also mindful that these guys are used to long stretches of solitude. For many, it is what they seek. They didn’t necessarily want me yapping in their ear for 8-hours straight.

My First Trucker Pal: Trucker Dan

The first trucker I rode with was “Trucker Dan.” His truck had a gorgeous vintage cab, shiny and fire-engine red with a commanding horn. I arrived without a vehicle so every day it was my job to find a trucker who would allow me to travel in his cab. I remember standing on the ground, dwarfed by his truck, asking him if he’d allow me to ride with him.

Dan was a man of few words, most truckers are, and frankly, he had no idea who I was or what I was angling for when I asked to ride with him. Nevertheless, he reluctantly agreed to take me in.

Not wanting to impose on any one trucker, I would get up really early, giving time for me to get back to the truck stop so I could find my ride for the day. I would walk among the trucks looking for a friendly face. Some of the truckers said no for a variety of reasons but I always found someone who would let me ride. I made some life-long friends on the trip, including Dan, and husband and wife truckers Allen and Bonnie.

In general, truckers are an inward, quiet bunch. They are also unbelievably smart and resourceful. While I will never be “one of theirs,” I did see the camaraderie and the support they give to each other. When they want to be, they are great conversationalists. Many of them spend hours listening to books, podcasts, news, and music while they are on the road.

Now let’s talk about what I saw in the American people as we caravanned across the country. First of all, I would be remiss if I did not tell you how difficult it is to manage a convoy with mixed vehicles. To be safe, big rigs need to space themselves apart. Truckers know that. At one point we were a convoy that was about two to three miles long. Using radio transmissions, a lead car, a lead truck, and the last truck, the convoy moved as a unit. It was MUCH more complicated than anyone looking on from the road would ever know or realize. For an insider look at all of those shenanigans, watch here.

More importantly, it was not just trucks in the convoy. As we moved across the U.S. word got out the convoy was coming to town. Many hundreds of people along the way rushed to catch up with us and joined in. I have the footage to prove it. However, “the cars” were entirely unaware of how to behave. Often swerving in and out to “catch up” with the convoy or to be the lead dog, they caused the truckers more headaches than I have pages to write about. Truckers are a conscientious kind, and they were always worried that the convoy would cause a horrific pile-up on the road. It never happened because of their diligence and know how.

There is so much to say about this experience. I have gone way over the requested page length. However, I will leave you with this.

I fell in love again with this country during a time when there was nothing good happening on the news or in the virtual world because of all the COVID nonsense. From the time I climbed into Dan the Trucker’s red cab until the time we all drove in to Hagerstown, I saw the best of America.

I so often would choke up as we drove under overpass after overpass with hundreds of people standing on them waving flags and signs, cheering us on. It was moving beyond words. And word spread like wildfire from town to town that the convoy was coming through. At one point, I was able to get General Mike Flynn to call in to the moving convoy. He thanked them for taking time off from their jobs to stand up for all Americans. This was the photo I took at the time he was speaking over the radio.

On countless occasions, rural towns mobilized, parking their gigantic, shiny fire engines draped with massive flags on overpasses just to get a second glimpse of the convoy as we passed under them.

Out west and in the heartland, I saw kids on tractors and couples on horseback waiting to wave to us. I saw generations of families, some in wheelchairs, tiny children waving miniature flags and others with their feet dangling over the back of their pick-up trucks who waited hours to watch us pass by.

A helicopter even showed up in Illinois with a gigantic flag dangling from it. This was in a state whose government tried to ban the convoy from coming through.

Then there were the rallies in cities and towns all along the way. People showed up in droves, greeting and thanking the truckers, lining the exit ramps and highways on and on through the streets and the narrowing arteries to where the rallies were staged.

We even carried a flag from Oklahoma to MD that was donated by the family of a WWll veteran; one that had been draped over his casket. The flag is in the center of the flatbed below:

There is no way to fully capture what I saw, what I heard, or how I felt. I remember wishing at the time that every American could feel what I felt when everything that was being projected on TV and in the media felt so absurdly wrong. It helped me remember the greatness of this country and its people at a time when I was beginning to feel all was lost. It helped me remember who we are.

For my reflections at the time from the road, please read one of the many columns I wrote about the People’s Convoy experience for UncoverDC here. You can listen to a couple of my makeshift video compilations here and here. And here’s my Mar. 9 interview with Frank while I was still out on the road. I think it best captures what I saw and felt.