Bus and the Snow

All day Sunday and into the night and early morning of Monday we got one of our famous March snows, not as big as we have had before but enough to close schools (which by the way doesn't have to be much) I think we got about 4 inches here. It's hard to tell, because it drifted so much. So no school on Monday, Yeah! I enjoyed it some. I had to get dinner ready and buy a B-day present For the Hubby, but I enjoyed making him something he likes, I just hate having to clean the Kitchen afterwords. Tuesday day Schools are delayed 2hrs, another yeah! I can sleep in until 7am, but it didn't happen, stupid body clock. I Go start my bus at 8:15am, we have to leave at 9am, it was a cool 7* outside with wind chills in the neg numbers. My bus started fine, when I come back up about 8:45 to start my friends buses, one will not start. I should have known then to go back home, but I call the bus garage and tell them that bus #147 will not start, they send someone out. My bus has now been running for almost 30mins but it is still COLD!!! But 9am I pull out of the school, I noticed that our school road in not completely clear of snow and the the road in front of the school still has lost of icy spots, that to me is enough to tell me stay home, but I have a job to do. I get to my 1st stop about 3 minutes late not bad considering that there is still icy spots on all the roads. By the time at get to my 4th stop I am now 5 mins behind schedule, not good, I like to be on time. Continue on and try to make up time but really can't since the speed limit on the bus is 45 mph and most of my areas are 35 mph. so I continue on. As a turn on to a little country road I notice again a lot more ice than I like to see under the wheels of my bus, but I go on. Make it off that road fine, when I go into this little sub-division that I have 2 stops in the roads are clear, Yeah!!!! and I think OK we are going to be just fine, I have also seen 2 other buses that go in there come out and they didn't say they had any problems. So on I go. I have a stop that is on a corner at the top of a hill then I have to back up into a small gravel area (will be a road eventually) as I get ready to back I notice a small pile of snow there, you know the kind that the plows love to leave behind. but I also see the tire marks from the other two buses, so I figured they turn there and all was well. Well! when I turn in the everything was fine, there wasn't even any snow on either side of the snow pile so I was on semi-dry pavement. I put the bus into gear and start to go forward, hit the snow pile and go no where, the wheels just sit there and spin. OK back up and try a running start, same thing when I hit the snow pile I sit and spin, just sit and spin. After trying this for about 4-5 times and waisting about 5 more minutes I was finally going to call the bus garage and tell them I was stuck, not something I like doing as every bus driver in the county listens to the bus radios. Then the thought came to me the garage is going to tell me to put on your snow chains, But I don't want to, because I'm only stuck on a 2ft wide pile of snow. I know How do you get a bus stuck on a 2 ft wide pile of snow? I don't know but I did it! But I digress, back to the story, I really didn't want to put snow chains on then have to take them right back off again after I got off the pile. So I decided why not lay the chains over the snow pile and drive over the chains, so that is what I did. AND it worked!!!! the kids thought I was crazy and they just wanted to sit there and not go to school, so I was not their hero for the day. I continued on and about 3 stops later another bus driver calls to tell me that I had a storage door open on the left side, Oh shoot! I forgot to close it but luckily I had put the chains back in the storage area on the right side and I didn't lose my chains. I was by now running about 10 minutes late and I was the last bus to show up other than the short bus which is always late. Later that day I had a Kindergarten teacher come and ask me if I had run off the side of the road that morning? No?? Why?? one of her students whom wasn't even on the bus at the time of the getting stuck part, his stop was the next stop and he didn't see it happen, told his class that his bus driver was sliding off the road for the whole trip to school. I had to laugh, I couldn't believe that he thought that or that one of his friends on the bus told him that. I survived but I really believe now that Buses and Snow don't mix.

Been there, Done that, and Still love my snow days.