The Bad Bus Trip

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" rowspan="2" width=50 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000" background="0ab0ce82egerdp.png"> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=95 BGCOLOR="#CC99CC" TEXT="#080000" background="0aa265f1ezuady.png"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Times New Roman" ><B>Hynda and Nolan's  Rome and Other Adventures</B></FONT><B>  </B><B> </B><B>|   </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Hynda and Nolans Rome and Other Adventu"><U><B>home</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id237.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Lonnie Chronicles"><U>The Lonnie Chronicles</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id238.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="2010 May/June"><U>2010 - May/June</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id240.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="July/August"><U>July/August</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id243.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="September/October"><U>September/October</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id266.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="November/December"><U>November/December</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id269.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="2011 January/February"><U>2011 - January/February</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id271.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="March/April/May"><U>March/April/May</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id298.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="June/July/August/September"><U>June/July/August/September</U></A>   |   <B>The Bad Bus Trip</B></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" height=385 colspan=2 BGCOLOR="#FFFF33" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <I>The Bad Bus Trip</I></div> <div> <B>The Bus Trip Back - Wednesday June 23rd</B></div> <bR> <div> John, the best bus driver that Washington Deluxe has.</div> <bR> <div> <IMG SRC="123644b30.jpg" border=0 width="580" height="435" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <bR> <div> Hynda and I have been traveling back and forth to NYC by bus. The Amtrak tickets have become very expensive - $100 one-way versus the bus which is about $20 one-way. There are about 10 bus companies that now have service to NY from DC and we have been using Washington Deluxe. The bus leaves from DuPont  Circle about three blocks from our condo. As long as you do not leave on a Friday afternoon or a Sunday afternoon the trip can usually be made in about 4 hours. This is about 45 minutes longer than the train schedule. So far we have been lucky. This week on Monday the bus took about 6 hours when we got stuck on the New Jersey turnpike due to a very bad accident. </div> <bR> <div> This week Hynda went home on Tuesday night and I left on Wednesday. The trip was uneventful until we got to the Delaware Memorial Bridge - about half way to DC - when the generator light came on. The driver pulled off I-95 and stopped at a Wah-Wah (7-11 type store) and told us to get dinner while he called the office in Lorton, VA about two hours away. The office reported two things: a service truck was on the way to replace the belt and a bus was behind us with some empty seats and both would be there in an hour. The bus coming only had 13 empty seats and we were 19 passengers so 6 of us would be left behind as no one could stand on the bus for the 2-hour ride to DC. Our driver, John, decided that woman and children would go first. When the bus arrived the driver said that anyone who wanted to come and stand could do so. John said that the service truck was now 15 minutes away so I decided to just wait rather than stand for 2 hours. A young lady from Ghana was the only other passenger to wait. She said that the new bus was going to Bethesda and her husband was waiting downtown and she was afraid to go anywhere else. </div> <bR> <div> The service truck arrived about 30 minutes later. The first person out of the truck was a rather heavy young man who immediately went into the Wah Wah to buy a Twinkie and a corn dog. The other occupant of the truck was your stereotypical burned out drunk, wasted guy wearing an outfit that looked like it hadn't been cleaned in months. He told us that the kid who was in the Wah Wah was `not worth s**t and did not know anything about vehicles - he is just the driver'. When we asked him why he did not drive himself, he informed us that his license had been taken away. </div> <bR> <div> At this point the office called and they said that they had earlier dispatched an empty bus and that it was one hour away. I overheard our driver tell them to send the bus back since the mechanic had arrived. When I heard this I asked John to call them back and not turn the bus around. I pulled him aside and told him I had no confidence that this guy would be able to fix the bus!!!  He did and told the bus that we would call them if the bus got fixed but to just continue coming. </div> <bR> <div> The mechanic realized that he would have to take off two belts to replace the one that had broken. After he did that - with much grunting and swearing - he started to put the new belt on. There was two problems - one was that he had the wrong belt. The bus had a small compartment with as many as 10 belts but none of these were correct. The second problem was that our driver pointed out that there was a diagram on the inside of the truck which displayed how the belts ran over the pulleys and it was apparent that one of the pulleys had just snapped off and was probably on the highway on the other side of the Delaware Memorial Bridge. None of this information seemed to phase the mechanic as he continued working convinced that he could still somehow make this work. </div> <bR> <div> The empty bus arrived and the lady from Ghana and I were boarding and I asked John, our driver, if he was coming with us. I assumed that he would lock up the bus and it would be towed sometime later to be fixed. He told me they were sending a truck from Lorton - 2 hours away. I assumed this was a tow truck but he told me that they were going to send a new pulley and belt and he was to wait there to drive the bus home. To save money the mechanic was told to go home and come back when the parts arrived. This did not seem to make sense to me since he was located an hour away and he would only have to drive home and then come back anyhow. </div> <bR> <div> When we boarded the bus the driver informed us that his day had begun a 6 AM in the morning and he was just ending his day of driving when he was told to come to Delaware to pick us up. He got coffee from the Wah Wah he said to keep him awake for the drive home. I sat in the front seat, which I hate doing, in order to talk to the driver for the two hour ride home. I was afraid that he was going to fall asleep. We arrived at Dupont Circle at 1AM in the morning. </div> <bR> <div> So the question is - do I request a free ticket for out next trip??</div> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>