Adventures In Bus Riding

Okay, I need to preface this post with - I brought this day upon myself. You see, last night I posted a comment in Facebook about being happy that I'd be on the bus today because I had icky traffic driving home Monday night. That'll teach me...

I live about 18 miles from my main office. I'm at that office 3-4 days a week and with gas prices and my SUV I try to take a "Fast" (aka commuter bus most days. Since the weather is cooling down and the road construction is clearing up I decided to walk the 1/2 mile to the bus stop this morning. I left a skooch late and then had to quickly talk to my neighbor. Guess what, I missed my bus. So I turned around and started walking back to the house.

During my walk to the bus my daughter texted me to let me know she had left her lunch cooler at her bus stop. So, I decided to walk to her bus route and just take the Max bus (less stops than a typical bus) to the light rail. So, I trudged along back the almost 1/2 mile and then another almost 1/2 mile and up hill mind you. Just before I made it to the big intersection I see the westbound bus, I need the eastbound so I'm fine with that. I got my daughters lunch cooler - amazingly no one took it.

It arrived at the stop about 7 minutes early and the bus comes every 15 minutes. Or, well, it's supposed to. I'm listening to a book on my MP3 player and I hear a crashing sound. I turn back to look at the intersection and there was a crash. One car t-boned another. I'm not sure exactly what happened, the impact had to have been pretty good because the car that got hit on the drivers side has spun 180 degrees. Eeek! Traffic was having a hard time getting through the intersection because the cars were blocking it a bit.

Just before the bus arrived (9 minutes late I might add) several Sheriffs showed up and were able to get the least damaged car out of the intersection. I hop on the bus and should have known things weren't going to go well - it was a trainee driver. He pulls into the intersection stutters a little and then goes. Well, he apparently ran a red light and the Sheriff actually pulled us over. Just gave the driver a talking to but that added about 3 more minutes to our tardiness.

Within a few miles, the traditional bus (the route that stops every 500 feet) catches up with us. A minute or two after that the bus that should be 15 minutes behind us starts catching us. I was in a seat facing backward and was quite entertained. Eventually, we stopped picking up new riders and just let the bus 1/4 mile behind us handle that job. Then, the "trainer" started asking people where they needed to get off, she was hoping to trim some of the stops but wasn't very successful. We actually ended up getting "lapped" by the other Max bus. It arrived at the Trax (light rail) station about 2 minutes ahead of us and I missed the Trax by about... 2 minutes.

Needless to say, I was a little nervous to take the bus home tonight. I was worried that things could only continue downhill. But, my worries were unecessary. The ride home was markedly uneventful. Thank heaven!