Posted by admin on Apr 14, 2010 in
Bus / Coach,
Where Am I? Been a busy weekend… wasn’t sure whether I was coming or going…mostly because I was in-between all the time!
Let’s see… last Thursday’s run… oh yeah… Lewiston High School colleges run… was part of a massive 17 bus pick-up… each one of us with a different set of colleges to take the kids to. I had University of Maine – Augusta and Husson College. Pretty straight-forward run… the only thing of note; Husson College must have the highest student smoking rate of any place I’ve ever been to! It seemed like every third or fourth student walking around there had a butt in their hand or face. Way to go Husson for creating the next generation of society out-casts! We’re an endangered species, a dying breed for sure! And DON’T even get me started about it being a FEDERALLY LEGAL PRODUCT…
Friday / Saturday’s run was taking Bates men’s Lacrosse to Connecticut College… decent enough hotel… however thought it was funny as hell they put me in the handicap room! Not sure if they were trying to tell me something…think it was just coincidence!
More pics after the jump
Let’s see…that puts us up to when… oh yeah Sunday / Monday’s overnight to Boston… Picked up the group of Brits at Indian Head Resort in Lincoln, NH… drove them down to the Midtown Hotel in Boston… that same shitty, crappy, chinsey, cheesy hotel I’ve stayed at before. No shopping en route which was nice, we got there around Noon and I was able to take a nice couple hour nap before they needed to be carted over to the Hard Rock Cafe for 1900hrs.
Monday the schedule said nothing planned, however they wanted to go to this place…Cambridge Mall thinking it was a true “mall” and not he strip-mall I was told it was. Convinced them they would be better served going to Quincy Market… so what did they decide? Bowling! Come all the way to America to ski for a week and sightsee and they decide to go Bowling! Oh well… @ $50.00 an hour wait-time they can do whatever the hell they want…so off we went!
THEN they decided Quincy Market would be a good idea…dropped them off around 1300hrs… picked up around 1730hrs… quick slide over to Logan… kicked their ass to the curb… threw out their shit and headed north in a hurry! Ended up making a pretty decent tip out of it too! Which was funny because we never really “clicked” the whole trip…but oh well.
Tonight I’m meeting the starter-driver in Amesbury, MA for an overnight drive to DC. usual monument drop-off in the morning then off to the hotel for some down-time. This trip is a bit different in that they’re staying in Virginia (Dulles Marriott) and have several stops (dinner and some concert they’re doing at George Mason University) in Virginia in addition to the usual tourista stops.
More later…
Posted by admin on Apr 6, 2010 in
Bus / Coach,
Where Am I? Had a pretty straight-forward run last night. Pick up another load of Brits at Logan, take them to the North Conway Grand Hotel right in the heart of Conway (actually right IN Settler’s Green shopping area). Had one of the newer guys with me, he’d never been down to Logan with a bus before… so we scooted right down, getting there about ten minutes late. Checked in at the holding area, and discovered the plane was actually ON TIME!! Hung out for a few minutes then rolled over to terminal E and loaded up.
Ran all the way up 93 instead of taking the Spaulding Turnpike… while slightly longer (by about 20 miles), we got to avoid all the traffic and tolls and it was a nice enough run across Meridith, NH. Dropped them off 15 minutes early of the schedule and beat-feet back to the shop… got home here around 0200. The only “downside” to the whole evening… well I’ll put it this way; my father told me a good joke the other day that sums it up:
What’s the difference between Brits and canoes?
Canoe’s tip!
Off today and tomorrow… got a run Thursday, an overnight Friday into Saturday (Bates run)… and have a DC trip starting next Wednesday.
Posted by admin on Apr 2, 2010 in
Bus / Coach,
Where Am I? Had a decent run to Logan last night… picking up a load of Brit High Schoolers going skiing for the week in Lincoln, NH. Manage to arrange with my father for him to ride along for the joy ride which was rather unusual and quite nice. Unusual because whenever I talked to myself on the way down, someone would actually answer back! It confused the hell out of the voices in my head! ROFLMAO
Pretty uneventful trip… got there right on time per the schedule… plane was 30 minutes late… then when they were finally ready curb-side (at Logan you have to wait in a bus lot until they are ready to board and get called)… they were late getting their bags and generally dragging their feet. So we ended up leaving Logan almost an hour late… but that’s just the way it goes with those International flights!
Cruised on up to Lincoln with incident or stops… dumped them off and headed across the Kangamagous Highway… I always love cruising a bus through there at oh-dark-thirty in the morning with no traffic and use of the full width of the road…as Dad soon found out! Needless to say I didn’t waste any time coming across the mountain! :)
Heading up to Disgusta today to pick up a load (actually two loads / two buses) and taking them to I think a Celtics game at the Garden in Boston. It’ll be a nice couple of hours I can go get something decent to eat other than fast food for a change! It’ll be another late night… they almost always take an hour plus getting out of the Garden, plus traffic coming out of there is always a nightmare…the Boston cops I think actually make things WORSE by directing traffic instead of using the lights and closing some roads off… but what do I know, I’m just a professional driver!
Posted by admin on Apr 1, 2010 in
Bus / Coach,
Where Am I? I know avid reader… I know. I’ve been severely remiss in posting of my latest adventures… yet again! Been working the “night shift” mostly lately, runs that return late (well early morning)… hitting the sheets, then forgetting to post something the next day. So, let me remedy that here with a recap of the last two trips.
DC 3/23 – 3/27:
Met the “pick-up” driver at the Kennebunk service plaza, and drove the group over-night to DC, delivering them to Arlington Cemetery when they opened at 0800. From there I hit the hotel for a few hours of down-time. We stayed at the Embassy Suites in downtown DC… and let me tell you, they WERE “suites”!
(More images after the jump)
That groups tour of DC (Mountain Valley HS – Rumford), had one of the best schedules I’ve ever had… it was late start (well usually 9am) and early back to the hotel, usually around 7. And they although they didn’t stick to their schedule much (about half the time, half the group wandered off to do their own thing), it was a very relaxed and casual trip. The biggest “issue”… which really WASN’T an issue, was one student was in a wheel chair which made it a tad more difficult as I HAD to find clear curb space to off-load for the wheelchair lift. That was the most challenging thing of the whole trip.
So for my first “solo” to DC, it was an extremely kind, gentle, and easy trip with no issues… and… I got the best tip from that group than I have from any other charter including cruise ships… by at least double! :)
Next up was last night’s run… Bates woman’s Lacrosse to Tufts in Medford, MA. I’ve driven this group before (the last trip to Williams College actually), and the drive down to Tufts being only two hours, it was a pretty straight forward run. Well… that is once we GOT running! Showed up at the garage at 1145hrs, my report time, unloaded my gear (gps, log books, etc), then stepped out of the bus to do my walk-around inspection. There appeared to be a slight issue with the right side tag-axle tire… it was a tad flat on the bottom! Well, actually, it was completely flat all around, but I digress!
So a quick bus swap later, I was rolling to Bates in our brand new 1409 MCI bus. This unit is the dedicated Lewiston Mainiacs team bus and is one of the finest in our fleet. It’s only got 50k miles on it so it rides and drives wicked nice. All the screens are LCD’s, had a really nice sound system, satellite TV through DirectTV even!!
One of the really neat things about this bus is it has the new ZF-AS Tronic transmission. What’s that you ask? In a nut shell it’s a standard (manual) transmission, 10 speed to be precise. HOWEVER, there is no “stick” to change gears, and there is no clutch pedal. There IS a clutch (unlike automatic transmissions that have a torque converter)… this tranny has a computer controlled air-actuated control unit that disengages the clutch, then changes gears for you. In essence you step on the accelerator like an automatic transmission, but you feel the very distinctive shifting of gears, including the “double-clutch pause” while it goes from one gear to another. And being computer controlled, it’s smart enough to know to “skip-shift”. It usually starts out in 3rd gear… in town, it will shift from 3rd to 5th to 7th to 9th. Only real time it gets into 10th is up on the highway.
One other neat thing about this is “drive-away-assist”. When you come to a full stop, the computer holds and maintains air pressure to the brakes on one axle, even when you let off the brake foot pedal. This basically “holds” the bus in place until you start to apply the accelerator pedal and the clutch engages… as the clutch engages, the brakes are computer controlled / released so it creates a VERY smooth take-off, even on the steepest of hills… no roll-back!
Needless to say that baby was a dream to drive! And of course I forget to bring my camera last night, so I didn’t any pics of that unit… <sigh> Figures.
Tonight I’m off to Logan airport… picking up a load of Brits coming in, and taking them to Woodwards in Lincoln, NH… then it’s dead-head back to the shop. Tomorrow night I have a load out of Augusta going to the Garden (pronounced “Gahden” around here) for a game (dunno what type)… then late back to the garage around 0300 Saturday morning… off the rest of Saturday, all day Sunday and Monday at this point! Whoo Hooo! Gonna get out with my sweetie and enjoy some nice Maine spring weather!
Speaking of which, got back to the garage around 11 last night… fairly warm, with lots of drizzle from the storm that just rolled through… and what did my wondrous ears hear? Yup… PEEPERS!!! Shit-tons of ‘em too!
Spring IS here damnit!!
