ORANGE PARK – A local couple who spend their days together driving across the country are being given a special award for their efforts.

Couples drive all over the United States all the time, but what about couples that do so in a tractor trailer go from Florida to Tennessee to California in a matter of days? Karen and Richard Black of Orange Park spend about one week at home together for every six to seven weeks they spend on the road, but don’t worry, those six to seven weeks on the road are spent together, too.

“We love it,” Richard said. “We’re always together. She drives through the day and I drive through the night so we’re always driving.”

Richard and Karen have been together for almost nine years and they’ve been driving semis together for almost five of those years. For them, it just made sense.

Both have a prior history in the military. Karen was in the Navy and Richard was in the Air Force. Richard, however, has been driving semis for 15 years. While Richard was driving, Karen raised their youngest child until they graduated in 2015. With children out of school, Karen decided that she wanted to drive semis, too.

“The freedom is really nice,” Karen said. “It can get hectic, of course, with other drivers and traffic, but you get to see the country, and in our case, we get to see it together.”

“When we go through [somewhere] we like, we’re always saying, ‘Let’s go there one day.’”

Karen and Richard know their situation is unique. They’ve actually seen similar situations go the opposite way.

“We’ve known couples driving together and the two will get in a fight and the wife takes off in the truck without the husband,” Karen said. “You really have to like the person you’re with.”

The Karen and Richard tag-team are so effective the company they work for, U.S. Xpress, named them drivers of the month in November. U.S. Xpress picks a driver of the month for each month to create a pool of 12 truck teams. The company then picks a driver of the year out of that pool and Richard and Karen are set to receive that honor this year.

“It’s awesome to be recognized for this because we’re practically always on the road and they (U.S. Xpress based in Tennessee) don’t really know us beyond our work,” Karen said. “So to be recognized for this, it means our work really speaks for itself and that’s a nice feeling.”

Richard said the two of them have been beyond blessed with U.S. Xpress and wouldn’t choose to work anywhere else.

“They’ve been great to use and have given us some really good opportunities,” Richard said. “We move from one good opportunity to the next and it doesn’t get any better than that.”

Richard and Karen believe a lot of what led to the prestigious honor of drivers of the year is their work ethic. Their time in the military solidified in them the importance of getting the job done and doing so effectively and efficiently.

“If we run into problems, we always have time to get them fixed or sorted out because we always leave early,” Karen said. “We don’t call out and we’re always available for our loads. We don’t sit, we run, and we don’t waste time. That’s what we’re about.”

This was especially obvious in a recent situation that saw the couple go from Florida to Tennessee to California in a matter of days on the turn of a dime.

Their truck was in the shop for maintenance so the two were out for the week, that is, until they received a phone call around 6 p.m. recently.

They were asked to pick up a load in Memphis, Tennessee, the next morning, because the original driver of the load had a medical emergency. It wasn’t even a question of whether or not Karen and Richard were going to do it.

They rented a truck and were on the road just a few hours later. They reached Memphis by 8 a.m. the next day. They then had to reach California just a few days later.

“It’s normal for us, though,” Richard said. “We left Savannah, Georgia, at 1 p.m. two days ago and made it to Los Angeles.”

“Our truck doesn’t stop rolling.”