How many buses does it take to get from Nauvoo to Houston?
Until this trip I had never been to Oklahoma before. But on this trip we spent too much time there. Don't worry I don't hold anything against Oklahoma. Someday I look forward to visiting under better circumstances.
So our tale begins as we are driving along in the wee hours of the morning about 3:30 AM. Most of us were sleeping or trying to find a decent position to sleep in. I had just gotten comfortable and was starting to drift into the sleepy world when "CLUNK!" It felt like we had run over something and my thought immediately was "Uh oh! That didn't sound good." But the bus driver kept driving so I started to think that it must not have been anything major. A few minutes later the bus driver saw some sparks coming from the back of the bus and pulled over to check it out. And calmly assured us in English that everything was fine but then started speaking in spanish to the other bus driver saying "What the crap just happened?" When they went to look this is what the found.
One of these things is not like the other. In case you missed it, this picture might help.
Our entire wheel had fallen off the bus! So they drove us very slowly to a truck stop and then they called the bus company to send a mechanic to check it out. An hour later they determined that they couldn't fix the bus and would have to send another bus from Dallas (which was 3 hours away) to come get us. By this point it was 5 ish. So I thought okay not too long and we'll be on our way and we can just sleep until the bus arrives. Cooper actually had a brilliant idea and went down to the luggage compartment so he could stretch out and sleep.
3 hours came and went with no bus. Then 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 hours went by. Then at about 1 PM to our great joy the bus finally arrived. Apparently, if you are going to have your wheel fall off on your bus and have to get a replacement bus you shouldn't do it on a saturday (make a note of that) because all of the buses and drivers were out already. So they finally had to contact another bus company to come get us so we weren't there even longer. Halleluja! Cause 9 hours was long enough.
For those of you that might be mechanically inclined and like to see the lack of wheel in the daylight here you go. I was told that that part there above the axel isn't suppose to be like that. Yes you know that one.
Although we were detained on our journey for longer than we had wanted or planned we made the best of our situation. Stacy and I joined Cooper at his luggage compartment.
They played some Ultimate Frisbee.
We ate breakfast.
Played some more frisbee.
Found a lady bug.
And uh... yeah.
The signs says "Welcome to Chouteau" wherever that is. This happened to be right across the street. But that is where we stayed for 9 hours.
We had a devotional and sang hymns.
Cooper, Stacy, and I rewrote hymns to make it fit our circumstances. Like the big hit "God speed the Bus." And the one we didn't perform for anyone "Rejoice the bus has Come!"
From the luggage compartment we had a nice view of the car parade that stopped in at the truck stop.
This was the most comfortable place I experience on the bus.
Then Megan joined us. I love this photo!
Then we rejoiced when the bus finally arrived. And we quickly transferred everything to the new bus.
When we were approaching Dallas we learned that we had to change buses yet again. This time back to a bus from our company. We quickly transferred everything over again.
We eventually made it home only 6 hours after we had planned to but we had a good time.
Here is a headless picture of Cooper our bus attendant collecting trash and dispersing hand sanitizer as he had done all through the trip.
And another with better lighting.
We felt fortunate that our wheel chose to come off when it did. If it had happened an hour earlier it would have hit another car on the road but at the time there was no one else around. If it was a different tire it could have caused us injury. In many ways it could have been much worse then it was. We are grateful that we were all protected and made it home safely even with the 9 hour layover. And we made the most out of our delay.
So how many buses does it take? 3 apparently.
