3 posts tagged “bus trip”
The big day finally arrived!
Bruce and Denise arrived at our house around 9:15, and we headed down to the Synod office. Thanks to my Dad for again playing chauffeur...
As a very lovely little surprise, Pastor Peggy and her whole family arrived to see us off!
We left the Synod office on schedule right about 11:00 - only 21 hours to go!
Lunch was around 1:30 at a Wendy's in West Virginia.
Massive 4-player game of Super Crazy Eights through Virginia... played on our special self-leveling pillow table. We didn't time it, but one hand had to have lasted about an hour!
Movies played (not necessarily watched): Man of the House, Hunt for Red October, Casino Royale.
Feeding time at the "Golden Trough" somewhere in Tennessee. Note the extra spoons that had to be "walked" to our table by the server to earn his prepaid 15%. There were some things that weren't too too bad, I guess.
The bus driver tried to pull in a radio station playing the Steelers game, but it was pretty sporadic. Denise was getting updates from her friend who went to the game on her ticket, and I got some on my cell internet, but as we all know, it was another disappointing night for Steelers Nation... but on the bright side (and there always is one), it's hockey season and the Pens won!
Lots of attempts at sleeping went on after that, but mostly unsuccessful, by everyone's reports in the morning. Except for Denise, who soundly slept through the midnight rest stop.
Apparently the Cracker Barrel where the driver planned to stop for breakfast was still closed at 5:30am since he made better time than expected, so we stopped at one in Gulfport at 6:45 - basically at our destination!
Here's the table we weren't allowed to sit at because it didn't have silverware... so we had to sit at separate tables. I refrained from taking a photo of our bleary selves after 21 hours on a bus! Breakfast was pretty good, though a little heavy, and my juice glass wasn't clean. So far it feels like we've mostly eaten on this trip...
The nice warm sunshine sure felt nice on our faces this morning!
Nikki came up with a way for 3 people to listen to her CD player...
Another 20-odd hours ahead of us...
Everyone on our little bus was all packed and ready by 9:00, so we left before the coach bus. Since we had been cold on the way down, and the people in the back had been complaining that they were too hot, we volunteered to take the "hot seat", the very back bench seat.
Watched "Catch Me if You Can" right off the bat. I had seen it before, but it's very good.
11:15 - rest area near Castleberry, AL
Watched "The Truman Show", which I had brought on VHS (which took a while to figure out, since all the others had been DVDs). It's one of my all-time favorite movies, but the others didn't seem to like it so much.
1:40 - fuel stop in Calera, AL. We elected to get take-out fast food for lunch, and save our sit-down meal for dinner. Some chose McDonald's, some chose Subway, and Al & I got border bowls from Taco Bell. After getting underway with our food on our laps, I was taking umbrage at having paid extra for guacamole and not finding a container of it in my bag, until I discovered it was already right there in my bowl. Heh. We got back on the road by 2:15.
Watched "Bruce Almighty" between catnaps (not one of my favorites).
Entered Georgia around 4:30, and the time changed back somewhere around here.
Entered Tennessee around 6:00 eastern time.
Watched "The Italian Job", the newer one with Mark Wahlberg and Charlize Theron, which I'd seen before and like.
Oooh, very hot seats! But we asked for it...
8:30 - Fueled the bus and ourselves in Knoxville TN. We had dinner at another Cracker Barrel: I had "beans & greens", which wasn't quite what I'd expected, but good, and a tall cold mug of apple cider (so yummy!), and a peach cobbler for dessert (before I realized no one else was getting dessert and that our table had been the very last to be served, so I had to kind of gobble it down). Al had a turkey salad & iced tea. We got Pens updates again via Gene's Blackberry and Alex's text messages. We didn't get back on the road till 10:00.
Watched "She's the Man". I thought it was pretty lame, till Laura explained to me later that it's based on Twelfth Night; I still don't like Amanda Bynes, but now I see that some of it was actually humorous.
11:30 - rest stop at Virginia Welcome Center (getting quite cold out).
Hot, hot, hot seats!
"Gone in 60 Seconds" was playing, but I was mostly sleeping.
It was dark of course, and we were trying to get some sleep, but we think we got back into snow-country around southern West Virginia.
3:00 - stopped for fuel at the station on Rt 19 in West Virginia where we often stopped on our way back and forth to Savannah.
Sweating like a pig!
6:30 or so - stopped for a rest stop at the Pennsylvania Welcome Center.
7:30 or so - dropped off the two guys we picked up at the Bridgeville rest area on Sunday. I called Mom to say we were coming in earlier than expected, and would be back at the Synod office in another 45 minutes or so.
I helped guide Rob (the current driver) from 79 to the Synod office, since I was the only one on the bus who knew the way there. We got in shortly after 8:00, and Dad showed up shortly after that. After saying good-bye to all our new friends from Sarver and Meadville, we headed back to Mom & Dad's house for some coffee and cereal. I showed them all our photos on their computer, and we told them a lot about our trip. Then we headed for home to see if the pipes had frozen (they hadn't), and to get a few groceries (since we'd eaten or thrown away everything before we left).
Home Sweet Home!
Our journey begins…
Sunday morning at church, we were Commissioned by Pastor Peggy, using a special service created by the Synod just for this purpose. Part of the text from 2 Corinthians was: “We have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power … does not come from us. When we are afflicted in every way, we are not crushed. When we are perplexed, we are not driven to despair. When we are persecuted, we are not forsaken. When we are struck down, we are not destroyed.”
We received a few more last-minute donations at church, so that brought the total to $1,188 in cash and shopping cards for Lowe’s and WalMart. Everyone applauded to send us off, so that was nice to feel all that love and support.
We had to leave church early, to get to Mom & Dad’s house in time to have lunch before Dad drove us to the Synod office. We had a great brunch of scrambled eggs, sausage patties, biscuits, German coffee, and OJ.
We arrived at the Synod office at 1:30, as requested, but the bus didn’t get underway till about 2:10, after waiting for the “Bethesda Bus” to get there. We had been assigned to this bus, which turned out to be a 30-passenger bus from children’s home in Meadville. So it was a little less comfortable than the big coach bus, but on the other hand most people were able to use 2 seats and spread out, and also it’s easier to get to know everyone. A few of the people on our bus were from the home, including the two drivers, and most of the rest of the people were from Sarver. And then we had to stop and pick up two more men at the rest stop in Bridgeville.
Here’s the rundown of the endless bus portion of our trip:
2:10 -- left the Synod office after a group photo in the freezing cold
2:40 – picked up 2 more people at the Bridgeville rest area
Watched Sleepless in Seattle on the bus DVD, though the screen is small and only in the front, so it’s a little too hard for me to crane my poor little neck to see that high and that far.
Received text message updates from Nik on the Pens vs game. It ended badly (they lost in a shoot-out), but it was nice to have the updates!
4:00– rest stop
Cheaper by the Dozen 2 – pretty lame
7:15 – dinner and Super Bowl at Garfield’s sports bar in Beckley WV. Apparently the Synod group last year had also been traveling on Super Bowl Sunday, and since it was the Steelers in it, they obviously had to stop to watch the game. They happened upon this place, descended upon it, and they volunteered to keep their dining room open later than usual for a Sunday night so they could watch the game. So this year, Pastor called ahead and set it up again; they seemed glad to have us back and set up the whole front room for the 50 or so of us. I had 7-layer dip with tortilla chips, and Al had salmon; both of us had apple crisp for dessert, though I think it did have nuts in it, because my stomach didn’t feel so hot afterward.
10:00 – back on the road
In Good Company – seemed like a not bad movie, though I missed a lot of the dialog, and kept dozing off, it being past my bedtime
Midnight– rest stop, and I think we got fuel, though we’re a little fuzzy on the middle-of-the-night stops at this point
I, Robot – saw it before & liked it, but I slept through pretty much all of it, except the loud parts kept waking me up
2:00am – rest stop in Tennessee. I think this is where the coach bus changed drivers to a fresh driver who met them there. Our bus had two drivers who switched back and forth at pretty much each stop.
Basta with the movies!
Slept
5:15 – rest stop in Georgia
7:30 – woke up with the daylight, just before Birmingham
8:15 – fuel stop, then breakfast at Cracker Barrel in Calera AL. I had a “Country Breakfast”: eggs, grits, and biscuits (and coffee and cranberry juice). Al had a peach pancake breakfast which included eggs & turkey sausage. Not bad.
Somewhere in there we lost an hour, so it was actually 8:15 local time when we left Cracker Barrel
12:00 noon – rest stop near Mobile Alabama
1:30 pm arrived at Ocean Springs, Mississippi
So that was actually pretty grueling, basically 24 hours on the road, in not-all-that-comfortable seats, cold, no leg room (my knees were so sore). But our catch-phrase is: “It’s all part of the adventure”, so we’re dealing, never fear.
My Groups
-
Social Justice Updated: 3 minutes ago
-
The Green Life Updated: 5 minutes ago
-
United for Peace Updated: 6 minutes ago
Neighborhood
Explore friends, family, friends & family, or entire neighborhood.
