The Student Becomes the Teacher

Beth has been riding the DART bus now for almost 9 years. Sometimes it's 8-10 times a week, she's on and off the bus. But I've never riden the DART bus. Until today.

Chuck was driving for Starline and needed to take the van into work which left us without a reliable car to get us to the picnic. So a few days ago he suggested I just ride the bus with Beth. Of course! Why didn't I think of that? So I called and made the reservation.

To be honest I was a little nervous this morning. Chuck has taken Community Transit to work for years. Sharaya and Diana rode CT back and forth to high school. (They got discounted bus passes because our district doesn't have school buses for the high school.) And I think I've been on a transit bus 3 times in my life.

So I was asking Beth how much money I needed; was I supposed to give the money to the driver or do I put it in a machine; is there a certain seat she likes to sit in (there was). :)

 

Thanks Google!

The bus became crowded and was very loud. We sat right next to the mechanism that allows for wheelchairs and it rattled and banged at every bump in the road. The driver had a fan on and that was loud. The driver also had GPS but I don't know why because they rarely followed it. We made I don't know how many u-turns. At one point in the middle of another u-turn there was a blind man outside with his dog and we had to wait for him to get his dog out of the road. After a few minutes, a rider who was in a wheel chair began to cry and yell, "Stop it!!" I guess she was visually impaired and had heard other riders talking, heard them say the word blind and thought they were talking about her. They tried to convince her they weren't talking about her, apologized to her and asked if she forgave them. She said yes, and that was that. No more tears, the issue was over.

The picnic was fun. Lots of games and prizes, although it was colder than we would have liked. There was ring toss, bean bag toss, lawn darts... They barbequed hamburgers and hotdogs and asked everyone to bring food. Last night Beth and I made chocolate chip cookies to share. There were a lot of people there!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our bus came early because Beth has to work tonight. We finished eating then got up to wait for it. I was so afraid the driver wouldn't see us and end up leaving. I didn't want to be stuck at a park 20 miles from home. The first driver let us all off a ways from the picnic area and I didn't want the second driver to go there to wait for us. But the driver came right to the covered area and got us. The second bus was very quiet and we got home pretty fast. I should have taken a cue from Beth. She wasn't worried at all.