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The life of a trucker can seem romantic, especially when your coworker in the next cubicle is driving you nuts. But there's a solitude to life on the road, without a home base, or a chance to put down roots in a community. All that peace and quiet and be especially tough if you're a people person. But WFAE's Julie Rose discovered a new way truckers are fighting the loneliness of their occupation. At least twice a week Terry Martindale rumbles through Charlotte in a giant semi, shuttling aluminum parts between New York and Georgia. She spends most of her life, alone on the road, living out of her truck. "This truck is actually very simple, very basic," says Martindale, pointing to the three-foot wide bunk she sleeps in, a small desk and "plenty of cabinet space." "Plenty" is maybe an exaggeration - even for a woman Terry's size, "4 foot 11 and three-quarter inches." Because she's so short, people told her she could never drive a truck. That was all the challenge she needed to get behind the wheel. And turns out the seat in her truck moves way forward, so her height isn't a problem. But her personality kind of is: "I'm really outgoing. I'm really friendly. I'm bubbly. I have something to say to everybody." Which isn't easy to do when you drive 11 hours a day for days on end. And that's how she ended up on YouTube. "Oh sweet, I got parking!" she enthuses in her first YouTube video from back in 2008. It's a 10-minute day-in-the-life montage. Endless road signs and trees flash by. There's the occasional traffic jam. Martindale talks to the webcam like it's a passenger. More than 4,000 people have watched that video - which doesn't sound like much in the YouTube universe. But you can see from the comment thread why YouTube has become such an important part of Martindale's life. It's all inside jokes and "Hey, where you headed this week?" conversations. Some have migrated to phone and face-to-face meetings. This is the professional network Martindale longed for during the first eight years of her trucking career. "YouTube's definitely a gateway," says Martindale. "It's worked for me!" She giggles slightly when she says that, because she actually just started dating another YouTube trucker named Geoff Banner. One of his most recent videos is an effusive thank you to his fans. "I just logged on here and found I had 1,008 subscribers, which is totally awesome!" says Banner into the camera. There are hundreds of truckers on YouTube. Most are part-diary, part-music-video. You see lots of messy-haired drivers rolling out of bed in a truck cab, shuffling into a gas station to take a shower. North Carolina driver Rob Wilson lies awake at night conjuring ideas for his next video. Even getting interviewed about making YouTube videos is an excuse to roll the camera. "It's part of what makes me sane," says Wilson. "With traffic and cars cutting you off, and just the crazy people out there on the road, there's a way to kind of blow off steam." Some trucking companies have banned their drivers from making videos out of concern for liability. But the most prolific YouTube truckers have been embraced as ambassadors for the industry. Trucker Jim McCarter's videos feature his goofy alter-ego "Bobby Boofay" showing what not to do as a driver. He says his boss loves the videos. McCarter and his wife Jan live in their truck. She's kind of the big sister of YouTube Truckers. Her cooking videos are particularly popular. "A lot of people have asked me, 'How in the heck do I make cornbread in a truck?' Well this is how I do it," says Jan McCarter as she demonstrates the culinary wonders of a muffin mix and a crockpot in her cramped truck cab. The McCarter's videos routinely attract tens of thousands of views - enough to even earn them a little extra cash. YouTube made them advertising partners and pays a penny per click. "I'm not gonna retire or nothing on that," says McCarter. "And I don't really do it for the money, either. Being able to share this with everybody really brought a more job satisfaction to me." There are a few YouTube truckers making enough on videos they actually could quit driving. Trouble is, that money dries up unless they've got their wheels - and cameras - rolling.