If “home is where the heart is,” then professional drivers Stephen Asgar and Charlene Dougan are right at home wherever they are.
That said, “home” might be pushing a stroller holding the couple’s three dachshund dogs through Disney World while they aren’t working. “Home” could just as easily be sitting side by side, riding down the road in their Boyle Transportation tractor.
Whether “home” is on the road, on vacation or actually at their place of residence, the two agree that they are always at home when they’re together.
“Boyle has gotten us home a lot,” Charlene said. “They always want to know a home time. I’m like, I don’t want to go home but I’ll give you a date.”
“We usually try for like a month and a half out, minimum,” Stephen added. “But there’s been times — maybe not with Boyle — but in the past that we’ve stayed on (the road) for six months straight.”
The couple is approaching their first anniversary with Boyle, a Billerica, Massachusetts-based carrier that specializes in life sciences (pharmaceuticals, medical equipment and biologic) products and government and defense transportation. Prior to Boyle, they worked for another carrier hauling similar products.
While the two have found a home in trucking, trucking was not the first career choice for either.
“We met in college,” Charlene explained. “I guess we became a couple in like July of 2017. We started trucking together in July of 2018.”
Before striking out on the road, Charlene worked from home as a coder-biller for hospitals and physicians.
“After working from home for a half a decade, I was a bit bored,” she said. “I was just rotting in my house.”
Because she enjoyed driving, Charlene said, she started working on the side as a driver for Lyft, a company that uses independent contractors to provide ride-sharing services and business delivery.
She discovered that she loved driving so much that she thought she might enjoy working on the road full time as a truck driver — so she enrolled in a CDL school in Jacksonville, Florida. Upon graduation she ran solo loads at a Walmart distribution center for six months.
Stephen has his own trucking story.
“I was in Pennsylvania and going through a rough time in my life. I moved back home to Florida,” he shared.
Once back home, he said, his thoughts kept returning to the job he had been laid off from before moving.
“I’d worked at a warehouse facility for CVS,” he said. “I always talked to the truck drivers, and I thought, ‘This might be something interesting.’”
He chose to enter a training program sponsored by a motor carrier; after earning his CDL, he became a driver for the company.
“As soon as I was free of my contract, I bought my own truck and did the owner thing for seven years — and it was good when it was good.”
In mid-2018, Stephen and Charlene began driving together. When the freight recession hit in 2022, they decided to become company drivers. After checking out their options, they chose to drive for Boyle. Because of the nature of the freight, they said, drivers’ schedules are monitored — and good communication skills are essential.
“We have apps where we can message, and they answer right away,” Charlene said. “And if you call, they answer within seconds. I worked at another company where you’d be on hold for 45 minutes — but not with Boyle.”
The couple generally runs from the Midwest to Northeast, as far South as Tennessee and the Carolinas, and occasionally to Canada.
“We park our truck in Ohio near where my mom lives,” Charlene said, adding that they also rent a parking space for their trailer, with Boyle paying half the cost.
“We’d probably park in Florida, but parking is so expensive in Florida that it’s much cheaper to park in Ohio and get cheap flights to Miami,” she said.
“We can’t bring the truck home in Florida because our neighborhood is ‘no Class 8 vehicles,’” Stephen added.
The couple works hard while out on the road, and they say they also like to stay busy during their “off” time.
While off the road, the couple’s itinerary might include snorkeling in the waters off of Southern Florida or driving to Orlando to spend a week at Disney World.
Both on and off the road, both Stephen and Charlene are avid gamers, and they carry gaming equipment in the truck for use during down time.
“We game a lot, like Fortnight and World of Warcraft, that kind of thing,” Charlene explained, adding that she also enjoys painting. Her favorite subject is nature scenes, which often include animals, or abstract works.
And, of course, it wouldn’t be home for Stephen and Charlene without the dogs. The couple travels with a trio of dachshunds, ages 20, 4 and 2 years.
“When we first started dating, I had a pit bull and she had a dachshund,” Stephen said. “We decided that when our relationship was really starting to take off, so, ‘Hey! Let’s get a dog together.’ That’s as close as you can get to having a kid.”
Of course, traveling with one pet, let alone three (one a “senior citizen”) brings unique challenges. But the couple says they wouldn’t have it any other way. Even when the family travels hundreds of miles between breaks, the dogs are well behaved.
“They’re good at ‘holding it,’ and they’re pee-pad trained,” Charlene remarked about stopping to walk the dogs. “We usually have a stroller that we pop them in to go for a walk or to take them to the mall.”
Charlene says the only bad thing about having three dogs in the truck is the hair.
“I have to vacuum every day, or there are fur piles,” she said.
While on the road, the team tries to eat well. In fact, they do much of their own cooking and meal prep in the truck. In addition, whenever possible, they stop at farmers markets to pick up fresh fruit and vegetables.
“We’ve got a Foreman (grill) and an air fryer/microwave combo,” Charlene said. “Boyle gives you a big area for the fridge, so we have a 5 1/2 cubic-foot fridge. And there’s a lot of cabinets.”
In short, whether they’re together on vacation or earning a living on the road, Stephen and Charlene do their best to make wherever they are feel like home.
Photos courtesy of Stephen Asgar and Charlene Dougan.
Cliff Abbott is an experienced commercial vehicle driver and owner-operator who still holds a CDL in his home state of Alabama. In nearly 40 years in trucking, he’s been an instructor and trainer and has managed safety and recruiting operations for several carriers. Having never lost his love of the road, Cliff has written a book and hundreds of songs and has been writing for The Trucker for more than a decade.
