Ode to Buses

My tales of the travel bus deserved a post of their own. It all began Wednesday night when John Holst came and told Sister Passey and I that four of our bus drivers were sick and two of the buses weren't working. This was at 9 o'clock. We were supposed to be leave on trek nine hours from then. He said the bus people claimed the situation was "under control." I should have known better.

Thursday morning. At 6 am when we were supposed to be loading our buses only 4 of the six were there. Brother Holst made a phone call to be told the other two were in Firth and being worked on. A different bus was sent. We loaded that bus and were then told there was not going to be a sixth bus. So we now had to fit six buses worth of people into five. Thinking it couldn't get much worse I trenched in for a long bus ride. Then my bus driver introduced himself.

"Hi everyone, my name is Vance and I will be your bus driver for the trip. I have never driven a stick bus before so bear with me. Shifting might be a little bumpy at first."

Well boys and girls, Vance looked my age. And he wasn't lying. He nearly destroyed the transmission shifting into first to pull out of the parking lot. And things got much worse. He couldn't shift past that. I must explain though that manual buses are different. There are 13 gears and no clutch. You have to power shift. 3500 rpms and the right speed before you can shift to the next gear. When you hit 3500 you have to let of the gas and hurry and shift. Also known as power shifting. Poor Vance didn't really get it. The only reason I do is because John Holst's daughter Mandy was a ma om my bus and explained it all to me. Her husband spent the entire trip doing all the shifting while the driver basically just steered. At one point Brian just took over and drove to save us. When we were an hour away from our destination the engine died. We are already an hour and a half late and running out of daylight for us to trek in to our campsite. After some work from Brian who has spent his life around 18 wheelers and a prayer we were on our way again.

Saturday afternoon. We are loaded and Vance is still our driver with the same scary bus. The air conditioner is working in the back of the bus and I am beginning to really sweat. Then I realize Brian and Mandy aren't on our bus. I ask where they are and am told they switched buses for the ride home. My stomach drops and jaw hits the floor. Who is going to do the shifting now? Vance nearly drove us backward into a tree and over a poor old missionary. He then peeled out as much as a bus can and we are all crying and writing our last will and testaments. Twenty minutes later the engine dies and Vance has to get out and work on it for a while. Thirty minutes later it dies again. All this time the temperature has been rapidly rising and we are all drenched in sweat and running out of water. They ask us to unload the bus and get outside where it is slightly cooler, meaning its not 110 degrees. As I get off they open the doors to the reefer and tell us that they are loading us into the back since it is 36 degrees in there. After we are climbed into the back of the semi someone looks around and says "we look like Mexicans crossing the border." Can the day get any worse? For us it didn't. The bus started again but never did cool off until after dark. Then it was freezing. Vance was only slightly better at shifting. We arrived home at 1230. But the story doesn't end here. That was my story. There were three more buses behind mine. Two of them died and stayed dead for a while. Finally the truck driver said "That's it, get your people back on the bus and we are trying something different." Different meant hooking the bus up to the truck and towing it up the hill, full of people. Miranda tells me listening to the radio conversation between the truck driver and the bus driver was very scary and that the bus driver at one point said "I can't do it, I am not risking these people's lives" when the truck driver asked him to shift gears while being towed. He was afraid of shifting up and then not being able to shift down and hitting the semi. At 9 pm they called in two new buses from rock springs to get these people home. at 33o the last 3 buses arrived at the stake center. To say the least it is a good thing we are Mormon or the man in the stake who supposedly got us good buses may have been lynched today.

I plan to stay away from travel buses for as long as possible. And poor Vance might be feeling the same right now. The guy was a trooper and took a lot of abuse from his bus and some of the adults even though it wasn't his fault he got put in the situation he did. He also should be commended for driving a bus that should be destroyed by a hazmat team with as bad as it stunk because of all of us sweating in a bus with no a/c and no windows to open.