How many buses does it take?

So how many should it take? One, How many did it take: four! That’s right four buses. Needless to say it was an eventful trip. So how did it get started. It started normally at the airport in Reno where 13 of us where waiting with luggage and snowboards. Let’s see who where the lucky passagners about to emabark on this epic trip. 6 englishman who where on the way to be ski bums for the winter at Mammoth, Three people including myself who were going to be working for the Mountain. Three old ladies who where passing the time crocheting and they eventually ended up giving crochet lessons to the whole bus. And one gentleman who was on the his way back home from surgrey in Reno. So that was the crew that boarded the crest bus and left the airport at 11:45 with any incllation of what was in store for us.

The trouble started when we were heading out of Reno and started up wabasch(or something like that.) hill and the accelrator cable broke strand the bus halfway up the hill in the middle of the road. Needless to say it is very scary to have cars, semis with single, double and triple trailiers pass you at 65+ miles an hour. If wasn’t in the middle of the day you had to wonder how long it would be before somebody was going to hit the bus it was just a matter of time. Thankfully that didn’t happen. After spending several minutes determing the acccelator cable was broke, a nevada highway patrolman stopped and set up a buffer zone between us and the oncoming traffic and finnally after several phone call from the trooper and the bus company dispatcher a charter bus from a casino in Carson City Nevada. came and picked us up and took us to the casino and dropped us off to wait for another bus to take us further along to mammoth lakes and beyond.

If we had to wait any longer, I had a feeling that the snow boards would have been pulled out and a makeshift lift would have been put together somehow. Before that could happen the second bus of our trip arrived and picked us up. We left the first bus on the side of road for a tow truck to come. While the passanger rode in a charter buss to Carson city. Needless to say it was the best bus of the trip. It was a charter bus that the casino uses to make runs to the reno airport and it was very nice, it was too bad that we didn’t have this bus for the rest of the trip. But oh well, it got us to the casino where we waited for the third bus to come, (another bus from Crest). It could have been very dangerous if we had stayed there for much longer. But instead we took full advantage of the layover and got some lunch. A very neccsary thing that if we didn’t get anything to eat, it would have made the trip very ulgy. But in the end it was the best part of the trip.

So after about 45 minutes at the casino we were paged and finshed up lunch and met the third bus where were joined by a man who was returning from christmas shopping. Whoever he was giving the present to will be very happy. Because he will be finding a remote control hummer under the tree. The box is so big, I wondered if there would be room with all the luggage that we had. But alas we did.

So we took the third bus to the repair shop where waited for the first bus to come with the luggage and another bus of the same size to take us all the way to mammoth and bishop, ca After a good while both buses arrived and we transferred the luggage and the people to the fourth and last bus of the trip, where we proceeded to make it without any further problems.*

*Except for the heater not really working and several phone calls to the Mammoth housing office to make sure the would let us check into employee housing the rest of the trip was uneventful and we were only two hours late. Considering everything that happened that’s not bad at all.

Next time. “What the hell do Califoriniains mean when they say Down south?

Grocery Shopping`

Grocery shopping.

Okay for most people grocery shopping isn’t that big of a deal. You hop into to the car, drive to the grocery store and then walk into the store grab a cart and then proceed to fill it with the items on your list. Then check out and possibly get some help putting your groceries in car and then your on your way back to you house to unload it with very little problems* For most people it’s something that they don’t give too much thought too until they need food again and then it’s off to store once again.

This description is good for anybody that has access to a vehicle however if you don’t have a car grocery shopping takes on a entirely different aspect. Like okay how I am going to get my 15 bags of groceries home with only two hands and a backpack? A even better question is how do you even get to the grocery store in the first place. Now if you happen to live in a town with an adequate public transportation network and don’t have a car, it’s a manageable, though tough challenge. Thankfully Mammoth lakes Ca does have a very good bus system. The town does need it because the town gets over 400 inches of snow a year in the winter and most of the time it’s a lot easier to just to get on the bus to head up to the mountain and hit the slopes then driving up there and trying to find a parking space when half of LA comes up for the weekend.

Getting to the local grocery store in Mammoth is no problem you just hop on the bus and ride it until you get to the stop across Vons grocery store and then proceed to walk to the doors and grab a cart and proceed to start shopping. If only if it was that easy.

One doesn’t realize how much stuff you need to have a properly equipped kitchen, not only the pots and pans and the other materials you need to cook but all of the ingredients from spices, flour, sugar, butter and the big stuff like Milk and cereal, meat and all the other things it takes to put together meals until you have to go shopping for them. especially when you have complete stock a kitchen from scratch. Which isn’t a bad thing, except if you only have two hands to carry everything you need. Let me tell you there’s only so much you can carry with two hands, when I walk into a grocery store it’s like utopia, because for what seems like miles and miles there’s so much good stuff that you can buy from fruits and vegetables to bread and other pastries and i can’t forget cookies, which is always a good
thing.
Only having two hands creates many new challenges, which forces a dilemma, like all those 5 for $10 dollar deals on cereal are so tempting but you know that you won’t be able to carry all 17 boxes home with you. So you readjust your scales. Instead getting buying stuff in bulk like 20 pounds flour or a case of mac in cheese aka kraft if you happen to be from canada.
You buy just a couple of pounds flour and one or two boxes at a time. Even though you still buy stuff in small quantities it still adds up pretty quickly, which after getting all the nice discounts with your shiny new vons card. You are now ready to carry your eight bags of groceries home with you. One you get back on to the bus then real fun begins when get off at your stop and now must cross four lanes of traffic.

Which is a very daunting task with only two hands crossing four lanes of traffic all the while praying all the while don’t break, don’t break, please don’t break. After dodging six cars a bus and three truck you finally make it across the street and then you walk towards your apartment and home where you proceed to unload you groceries and then collapse exhausted from carrying them 2.5 miles* (Okay it’s less, but it seems a lot more) and then you wait to do it again all over next time.


Next time.... How many buses does it take to get from Reno NV to Mammoth lakes, Ca.?

Arriving in a new town.

Okay here’s is the first installment of my blog. In the next several entries I will try cover some of my adventures in the world and yellowstone national park, working in minor-league baseball and working, living and playing in mammoth lakes ca. Which is my current location.
It’s weird i think i might end up being of the few people that has lived and worked in every single time zone in the united states, except hawaii and alaska and that could be coming before too long. But that will be another adventure coming up but until then I’ve got allot more to recount and talk about. So where to begin? Let’s start with one of the first question I got asked when I arrived in Mammoth lakes employee housing.

“Do you smoke pot?”

Yap that’s right, I could go into further detail about the apt I spent just one night in. But I won’t be discussing all the dirty dishes and overflowing trash cans not to mention the eighteen bottle of beers around including the four that where in the bathroom. It was interesting place to be, but one that I knew from the moment I walked in i could not stay in. So the next day i rode the bus to the housing and got out of there as fast i could and I moved into the chutes which is their brand new apt complex with 3 or 6 person suites each having their own separate rooms and not to mention an halfway stocked kitchen. Needless to say it’s so much better than the other place. And much better than other employee housing which are pretty much party dorms. So that was just my first couple of days here mammoth lakes. What’s next? How about grocery shopping with out a car...