The First Run – All Round The Mulberry Bush

Well, got up at oh-dark-thirty this morning as I posted earlier.  Arrived at the terminal at the scheduled 0315hrs for a 0330 departure.  I was instructed to drive a new-ish Setra:

A pretty decent ride… about what you’d expect from a mid-class coach.  Had a nice ride up into Gorham, NH and across Rt. 2 to I89.  From there we took 89 North to Exit 11, Jericho, VT and the Underhill Artillery Range.

There I had to pick up my bus of the day, an older Setra S215:

The one I drove is actually brown and is showing it’s age, however, it still drove fairly decently.  Loaded with 24 Weekend Warriors and thier M16’s and 50 Cal’s… not to mention all thier gear and packs made for a pretty smooth ride down I89 to I93, then Rt. 4 out of Concord to Portsmouth where we (there was another bus with me) caught I95 North to the Portland armory on Steven’s Avenue.

Made some decent time and all in all a decent day.  I used every minute of my legally allowable drive time (10 hours) so it all worked very well.

Bottom line, it was a long day of driving… it felt good to be behind the wheel again… I got to see some nice scenery that I would never had seen from a rig… there are things I miss about OTR, but definitely things I prefer about being a bus driver (please, no Ralph Cramden jokes!)… probably the biggest thing I enjoy about this new direction in my driving career… at the end of the day, I get to be HOME!  I could get used to that!

That’s all for now folks… I’ll find out tomorrow what the rest of the week’s schedule is… hopefully a couple of shorter runs to “break me in” more!  LOL