I brought Kermit home today

Stardate 013108

A lot of folks are very proud to have a brand new shiny vehicle sitting in their driveway. Living in the country, working around the ranch, I just feel a need to have a couple of good pickem-up trucks in the driveway. Vehicles that will help me get the job done, and haul horses to the next trail ride or arena event. Most days Kittee drives "Subi" to Pendleton, I drive "Silver" and together we drive "Blue" w/horse trailer to our horsey events.
Today I brought home a shiny, like new vehicle to sit in our driveway. This rig shines even when it is cloudy and raining like today (see picture below). With a fully loaded dash panel, a Mercedes-Benz diesel engine, it is a smooth ride and runs like a top, a pleasure to drive.

I have been riding and driving a Big Yellow School Bus since Thanksgiving Week 2007. Last week I completed my Oregon Department of Education certification courses and now officially set behind the wheel of a Big Yellow School Bus. I went through a 3 week training session and testing to get my Oregon CDL with passenger bus and school bus endorsements last December.

Kittee and I talked about it and figure that being an ole horse rancher, what better part-time job is there through the winter than one that allows me to work Monday-Friday, as a Big Yellow School Bus driver. The job is good, working 3 to 6 hours a day, to be off duty/off the clock for mid-day equine feeding times, all holidays and summer horseback riding times with wife, family and friends.

The company I am working for is Mid-Columbia Bus Company, which is a school bus contracting company based in Pendleton. This bus company services school districts and private charters bus needs all across the Pacific Northwest. Something pretty cool about this company, indicative of its child caring friendly attitude, is that the buses located out of the Pendleton bus lot have endearing names of childhood star-characters like... Snoopy, ET, Rocky, Kermit, Shrek, etc. and that is how the drivers address our calls to base and each other over the company's radio network. To date I have driven buses such as mid-size 45 passenger Kermit (pictured above) to a larger 85 passenger transit style school bus called Lucy. Actually I did most of my training and CDL testing in Lucy.
Did you know that the Yellow School Bus is the safest form of transportation in America?

Believe me, if you have never sit behind the wheel of a school bus with 30-50-70+ young people right behind you... chattering away, it is quite a totally different experience to live through. It has been unlike any other job I have ever had, and I can't believe that back in my ole school days they let 16 to 18 year old high school drivers run those Big Yellow School Bus routes. It is nothing like cruising down the road on Sunday in your Oldsmobile.

I will digress here... I was talking with a Milton-Freewater City school bus driver, and he told me of a delivery he made once of the Oregon State Police SWAT team to a crime scene. He told me that while the team was suiting up (in the school bus) for the attack with all kind of guns all over the bus, the OSP Lieutenant was sitting in the driver's seat and looked in the rear view mirror and realized how large the bus was. The driver told him to imagine driving around with about 80 little heads sitting in those seats and that is what school bus driving is like. The officer said he couldn't imagine it, nor would he want to deal with that kind of responsibility. I found this a very interesting true story of a Big Yellow School Bus ride.

Anyway, the past few days I have been running a route as one of the regular drivers here in Milton-Freewater came down with the flu, and then her husband, was rushed to the hospital with chest pains the next day. Not a good situation, but takes me off the ranch as a substitute Big Yellow School Bus driver, here in my own neck-of-the-woods; Milton-Freewater, Oregon.
This week I have been driving the pre-kindergarten kids route. Now let me tell you, that a little group of 2 to 4 year old kids will help you smile each day. Gee, those guys are really small and so cute. Neat little people to watch, and put grins on my face throughout the day.

Life is simple, life is good.

a day in the life around the ranch --- Dale