Category: The Bus

I’ve got a new first stop going on down at Teton Springs. It’s pretty cool cruising through all the million dollar homes sitting on a gorgeous golf course early in the morning. I pull up right to the curve at Headwaters Grill and wait for my ride to emerge from the resort area. I’m learning all sorts of good stuff about the place, like the $400 plus room rates and the type of people that can afford it.

I’ll take my $25 a night Laughlin Nevada rate any day…

I’ve been staging in the morning at the Teton Range marker since I don’t have to go to Hatches Corner. It’s a nice little park area with lots of shade and today I walked across Hwy 33 to grab a shot of the pond:

I don’t recall ever seeing a bike lock used to secure an area. This was out at Hatches Corner this morning and the only thing on the other side was an overflowing creek. Oh well, captured my interest before picking up C.C.

I was waiting for my Reach For Rainbows kids at the Community Center today and noticed this vehicle backed in and taking up two spots. I took this shot from the passenger steps of my bus and that’s not the rear window, that’s the front, and if you look closely you can see a guy passed out in the drivers seat. Pretty classy!

And, he was in front of the steps so the kids had to walk by him…

My first morning pickup at Hatch’s Corner has provided a few photos to this blog but this one is unique because my GPS is in the shot. Normally it’s not on the bus because, well, I know the Valley, but I had a run down to Rexburg this morning and wanted to be prepared. It’s kind of fitting actually because map position is on my brain a lot as I finish up a kick-ass Eclipse app, to be announced…

I noticed something on my vehicle’s steering wheel today: the speed control button has braille dots on it! Actually, the braille alphabet has six raised dots arranged in two lateral rows, each having three dots, so there’s one extra dot here.

I’m really impressed that Ford would be considerate enough to provide guidance for our blind drivers. It’s probably hard enough as it is for them to keep the vehicle between the lines, much less stay within the speed limit.

It gives new meaning to the term Paratransit Vehicle!

The roads have been pretty dicey lately. I ran into this obstacle today on my way to a clients house and just blasted on through it. Nothing beats great snow tires, a 450 engine, and a driver with balls of steel!

Over the many years I’ve been driving a bus or supervising a fleet, my first stop of the morning always seemed to set the tone for the day. Coming out of the Seattle area I’ve had some pretty memorable first stops, but Hatches Corner continues to please me.

As I leaned my camera out the window into the sub-zero cold this morning, I grimaced at the frozen solid road, smiled at the Tetons and in the stillness of a Teton Valley daybreak I knew I would safely make it home tonight .

We’ve got a beautiful stretch of shirt-sleeve weather going on now, with a bunch more in the forecast. Not bad for early November, unless you’re a powder head dying to huck your meat off the backside. Sorry kiddies, you’ll just have to wait…

When one is standing by ready to swoop in and perform a ride, we refer to it as staged. In this case, I’m sitting by and my arm is staged.

I was driving by the Hanson place north of Hatches Corner this morning and grabbed this shot. My first passenger of the day was down the road and yes, to my devoted followers, that means exactly what it implies. I’m back!

This old silo in Tetonia offered up some Friday perspective as my bus purred nearby.

I was down in Idaho Falls today, working out of our main office. I spent some time this morning with my boss Amanda who took over a portion of her whiteboard to explain grants and funding for Teton Valley. The levels of U.S. Government bureaucratic structure, from the DOT on down, are totally mind-bending. She invited me to snap this photo, so I did, and I can’t wait to slide back behind the wheel of my simple bus as school begins again…

My boss caught up with me last Saturday and asked if I would cover a Rexburg route this week that went down a driver. I’m covering for Karen next week and still recovering from the last road trip, so I agreed. I needed to put some cash in the travel kitty anyway.

I left the base this morning at 0530 and returned at 1740, and this twelve hour day kicked my ass! It was a combination Saint Anthony fixed route with a bunch of rides I’ve never done, tossed in. Fortunately, my sweet GPS brought me to each door, across countryside outside of Rexburg that I’ve never seen before.

When I finally caught a break I headed to my secret spot down there that gives me shade, a place to walk with my shirt off, and quiet. In fact, it’s coded as Shade in my GPS. I also found a cool marker up on the hill.

I picked up a brand new client today, riding from the uppermost northern tip of Tetonia off 10000, down to the bottom of Victor at Teton Springs. She’s the manager of the Spa at Teton Springs Lodge, recovering from a ski accident, and I was able to get her to work today for the first time in a few weeks, and then back home.

We chatted a lot on both trips and have mutual friends in common. I had just recently learned that the Springs offers up their spa’s hot tub and sauna to non-guests and my new friend confirmed it in a big way by giving me two, one day passes to the spa. Wow, the best tip I’ve ever gotten on this job!

The least I can do in return is to share the fact here that their Spa is available to everyone, not just the folks that can afford the $300 to $400 a night room rates.