1 Bus, heading to Johnsonburg PA

... spending the night at Santa Nella CA

Nothing to do today, but we don't want to sit in the motel again. Breakfast is a choice of three packaged pastries and orange water. I mentioned they were out of juice, but they were working on making coffee so we didn't wait.

By 9 AM we are at the local National Cemetery taking a walk. The problem with some mistakes is they are familiar so we do them over again. We park where we park last time. The section numbers are close to what I am looking for. In this cemetery the sections are either 1, 2, 3 or C1, C2, C3, etc. We want C16. We park by C9 and walk. But for some reason C1 thru C12 are on the north end of the cemetery, 1 thru ? are in the middle and then it starts over with C13 on the south end of the cemetery. That is why both ends of the cemetery looked familiar. :)

Once we are done walking, we are wishing we would have stayed in the motel so we had some place to be for a few hours.

Finally we decide to head to San Jose and see how those cemeteries look. We are real gun shy about parking our car anywhere near the major cities after having it broken into.

Heading back through Santa Nella we take the 'homeless road.' Actually these people do have homes, mostly motor homes. But they live the same way. Trash piled everywhere. Both sides of the street. It is a street with no businesses on it and almost no traffic. Not sure why it is even there. It makes another street not a dead end is about all. Otherwise every street in this town is a dead end. And there are only businesses. No houses.

An hour and a half later we are at the first cemetery. At this one we have an area name, Roselawn. We didn't drive very far into the cemetery and saw Rose Street, and then the first area was Roselawn. We walked from the car to the far side of the section, turned to come back on the next row and BB had found the marker we were looking for. So not much of a walk here.

Now it was time to eat so BB found a Honey Baked that was about five miles away, away from the second cemetery. And we couldn't figure out if they were serving sandwiches based on what it said online but we headed over and they were serving. Huge sandwiches. We ordered the same thing we usually do and they were twice as big. And I wanted my usual cup of potato salad but the smallest they sold was quarts. Nope.

We didn't want to eat in their lot as it was very small, so we headed to the 2nd cemetery but found a larger parking lot before we got there. Most places near San Jose we did not see the homeless like other area's of CA. But they were still on the street corners, and walking the streets at stop lights between the cars. So they are there, some where.

At the 2nd cemetery there are not markings on the ground to say the areas so I went to the office. Closed, but there was a map on the building showing the areas. The one we wanted was right behind our car. I went to the far corner of the correct area, that area was about the size of a small city lot. 10 makers in and I found the one I was looking for and we were done.

Now we had about enough time to get back to Livermore before my 3 PM call to the dispatcher. One wrong turn down I-680 to add a couple of extra miles but nothing major.

We drive past the lot on the way to 'our mall.' More buses today. Including one for Kenosha :)

But I call dispatch and he is sending me to Johnsonburg PA. Because it is hard to get out of and he knows BB is with me :) and :(

I could be more picky but the pay is very good so we will go where he sends us. Unless we are up against the clock/calender.

He won't have the paperwork ready for over an hour. We have already done our walk this AM at the cemetery so we start doing math on this trip. Then we head to get fuel and drop off our mail. Gas is $3.09 at Arco but it is debit only, so we head to Shell, how much more could it be? $3.49. For 10 gallons, but I hate having to key in my PIN. Or we could have used cash and saved $4.

We get to the lot early, the dispatcher is there, but not done with my paperwork. We get my bus, a short one. BB heads to the rental car place and I get my paperwork, call for permits, and then wait for security to check me out. All takes time. Still it only takes a half hour to check out a bus but an hour to check out our RV's.

When I take a right at the first stop light it is dark and I can't see the road. So I reach to check if my lights are on and shut off the bus, and coast to the shoulder. Had to restart the bus, lots of warning lights came on, but they all cleared with the restart. Lights had been on, they just don't show on the roadway very well, they show distance OK. Opps, haven't done that for a while.

No issue finding BB and we are on our way ... slowly. Slowly up the hill like always at this time of day. At some point we see the Kenosha bus pass us. Not sure how all this works yet. Dispatch hadn't given out any paperwork when we drove past at 3 PM and one driver was leaving. This Kenosha bus was still there at 3 PM but gone by 5 PM, yet he is behind me and I have done my inspection and picked up BB and stayed ahead of him ???

A few miles down the road there is a slow down where two freeways come together. That is common. But it usually clears right away but not today. Soon I see a cop on the shoulder. Then a 2nd cop. Then in the ditch I see a car, upside down, with it's headlights still on. No other emergency vehicles so I am guessing it just happened.

And a few more miles down the road and I see that I have a side panel open and sticking into the other lane. I hit the shoulder. I never realized before that the shoulders right here are about nine feet wide with a curb. My bus is eight feet wide plus, and now I have a panel sticking out. The first semi that passes me on the shoulder before I am out of my seat misses the panel by inches. It is rush hour and no one is getting over. I finally am able to turn the latch on the panel and get back in my bus. Alive.

But a few miles down the road the panel is open again. So this time I drive half on the shoulder and half in my lane with my flashers on for two miles until we get to an exit. The exit ramps have the same curb so no where to park. I finally stop near the merge of the on ramp. BB will not let me out of the bus again without a safety vest on ??

When I reached around the front of the bus the first time I had turned the latch the wrong way. Now I lock both latches on all the outside panels. None had been latched from the factory. Those stayed, but tomorrow I will find that the ones inside were not latched wither.

So two opps in the 1st hour of this trip, hope it goes better from here.

An hour and a half later we are at the Quality Inn in Santa Nella, again. My spot is wide open as is most every place else.

As soon as we check in, we walk across the street to the food truck. BB was not hungry yet, that Honey Baked was huge. Good food from the food truck, we have stopped here before. Even outside in the middle of the field here they have their table tipped over. NO seating for anyone.

Late night.

NOTE: This was written up two days after. Most are written the evening of.

Load board

US - 321

IA - 137

MN - 6

WI - 2