Epic bus ride

I am sorry that I did not post on Friday like I said I would, that day just few by a lot quicker than I thought it would! But here is the story of our EPIC bus ride back. Just to give you some background, the way there took us about 27 hours, due to a snow storm we hit when we were driving through Utah. We had to put chains on at midnight and finally got to our destination safely. 27 hours, how could it get worse right? Well, that's exactly what we thought, but we were in for a surprise :)

11:00am - leave Glen Eyrie while it's snowing and beautiful

1:00pm - stop for lunch for 40 minutes

4:00pm - bus stops in Maxwell, New Mexico (population 300) due to problems with the engine. We are stuck there for about 3 hours and 15 minutes. Thankfully Anya (another staffer), Elizabeth (freshman) and I found a kid's playground nearby and played there for a bit, trying to get rid of all our energy :)

7:15pm - bus starts up again, and the have now called another bus to pick us up and so we leave to meet said bus. The driver says that we're able to go 20-30 miles without experiencing another problem...

7:45pm - at mile 31, bus stalls again. This happens a few times before the bus just dying for good. Commence waiting for about an hour and a half for the 2nd bus

9:15pm - 2nd bus arrives and we're on the road again!

10:15pm - said bus slides off the road into a shallow ditch and it's only because of God we didn't flip. Now we're stuck in 10 inches of snow and have to wait for a tow truck.

11:45pm - THREE tow trucks get us back on the road, and we're good for another hour when...

12:15am - bad accident up ahead and the road is closed. We get off the highway and wait at a gas station until it clears.

2:18am - we're on the road again! Yes, I know the exact time because I was awake basically this whole time...

5am - reach Albuquerque, New Mexico, our next scheduled stop, and switch buses again.

7:15pm - arrive safely back in LA after taking 3 buses - WHEW!!!

May I also add that the reason we switched buses for the third time is because our second bus was not from our original company we ordered from. That bus was only supposed to be a 3 hour ride to Albuquerque to get us to the next bus which was from our company. Oh, and the second bus was 2 seats short too, and so they encouraged us girls to double up because we're smaller and it's only for 3 hours right? So Michelle (bus buddy :) and myself offer to have another girl join us, so we didn't have a lot of room for sleep, hence me being awake. Well, I'd be awake anyways, I can't sleep on anything that moves, be it car, train or plane - one of my lovely gifts....

Was I able to see any of the crash at all then if I was awake? YES. We were watching the movie Hook, which I'll hopefully never see again (negative events permanently attached to it now), when all of a sudden I felt a jarring movement coming from our tires, like we were driving over marbles or something, then saw two HUGE waves of snow hit the front windshield, before some more bumps and then we stopped, leaning a little to the side. Good times. Actually, I was definitely freaked out, but then some of the students sang some praise songs and read aloud some of the Psalms and then I basically buried my head in the Psalms too and that calmed me down :)

Needless to say, it was EPIC and hopefully the record for longest bus/road trip ever.

And now here are some pics from that day:


All the guys loading up on the morning of our departure - in the SNOW


Ahhhhhh, lovely Maxwell, NM...


Me on the playground, having a lot of fun :)


Anya, raising the bar


Elizabeth having fun playing on the bridge :)


Anya and Elizabeth conquered this rope/pyramid thing - fight on!


Elizabeth doing a scene from "Up"


My attempt at trying to get a shot of Elizabeth and I swinging...

Needless to say we amused ourselves :)