The Art of the Bus Chase - Part 2

Not long after I started writing The Art of the Bus Chase - Part 1 my commuting nearly came to a halt. I'm not sure if I could pinpoint one reason for it but I'm sure the holiday's, snowstorms, frigid rain, and persistent head colds (yes plural) condemned the December mileage total to all of 84. Since we only had the one car and I wasn't about to drive a 44 year old truck on our snow/ice/crap covered New England roads, I had to modify my art form of bus chasing.

While riding the bike I never took note as to exactly where and when I was passing which bus. I just knew that certain buses ran more often than others and I was more likely to see #'s 31 and 30 more often than #'s 32 and 38. When I was acting "truck-lite" in December I needed to decipher the cryptic bus schedules and make my way to and from work by catching 2 bus routes at just right time and do a little walking. To add to the complexity of the bus schedule, they run certain routes less or alter their times when the colleges go on break.

This created huge amounts of frustration for me. Just when I got used to when I needed to leave to walk to a stop, the time of that stop shifted a few minutes or moved to the next hour. This conundrum has a lot to do with us buying the Honda. I couldn't see myself trying to adapt to these ever changing schedules and still end up late for work or getting home everyday.

This brings us to today's fun bus rides (plant tongue firmly in cheek, here). We dropped off the VW last night so they could figure out the check engine light issue which confunded me. I still needed to be a work today, soooo enter the Bus Chase.

Getting to the bus in the morning was easier than expected (both kids up and crying at various times throughout the night culminating with DaGirl in bed with DaMom and DaBoy on the couch with me just to get them both to sleep.) I was out the door and at the stop like I never stopped taking it. When the bus arrived however it became another story. The driver was still training so he was being overly cautious and flippin slow as molasses. When his shift ended at the second college and the observer took over, the driver switch was painfully slow and resulted in me missing my first chance at grabbing the second bus. When I finally arrived at work I had been gone from the house for almost an hour and a half. ugh!


DaMom's first quilting class of the new year is tonight so she was pretty adamant about me being home on time which meant I needed to fly out the door just a whisker before 5 to grab a bus. I was fortunate to grab an oddball route that actually took me all of the way to Atkin's where I could grab the final bus home. Tonight it took one hour door to door. Much better. Even though I figured tonight's first bus ride would get me to the right stop for the second bus on time, I still found myself checking my watch constantly.

It was the first time I've ever caught the buses right like that. The art is still under revision.

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