Springfield, Mo is in the top 5 most rapidly growing areas in the country. You may not want to live in Branson and commute but you could move closer to Springfield and still get the small town life you desire. If you still choose to drive a truck you will be much more likely to find a local job in Springfield as opposed to Branson.

OTR trucking is best left to those with little or no family responsibilities. I got into this racket after my divorce. Since I didn't have kids and I needed a change of pace trucking fit me well.

Now that I'm married again, I have to think of my wife a bit more. However, she knew I was a driver when we got married and understood what my job entailed.

Been married 13, OTR for 10 of that, but I had a funky regional OTR job, run hard, stay home hard, and I had enough time at home to have some semblance of a normal family life. Sort of.

Now I'm home every night, the equivalent of "driving local," and some things are easier, and some things are harder. The long ass hours are killer, and I don't get very much time to be with my family even though I'm home every day. I was happier running really hard on fewer days, and taking bigger blocks of time off. But that's life. I can't go back to my old job.

Anyway, it can be done, but it isn't easy, and the failure rate is high. John, Carl, Chris, Bill, Jerry, Charlie, Dave, all divorced over trucking, myself, Clifford, Tom, apparently U-Turn, not divorced over trucking. Just a sampling of people I know in RL (plus U-Turn). That looks like 7 to 4 in favor of divorce, but if I expand this to people I know who don't drive at all, it's probably more like a 90% chance of getting divorced anyway, or maybe 99%. Marriages that last seem to be a freak of nature in this day and age.