Ride the Bus - Tips on the Internet

Riding the bus is now a national story. Today, when looking at my MSN news here on the Internet, the banner advertisement flashed a story that includes tips on how to ride the bus. Since I'm trying to advocate for folks to at least try riding the bus once or twice a week, here's the link to the "how to" article.

With my own busy life that includes working some nights - and thus negating the possibility of riding the city bus - I take a look at where I need to be on each day and then make my decision. On days when I don't have to stay late to teach a class, and when I don't have other work related errands to run in other towns or cities, I ride the bus. This equals any where from one day a week to three days a week. The savings in gas money is marvelous.

Since I live in a small city area, the bus is a very pleasant thing to ride. The folks taking it tend to be older people, or people having disabilities. The morning routes do include many children riding the bus to school - mostly to the parochial schools. Some of the riders are folks on their way to work, or on the way home. I've yet to see a "questionable character" get on to the bus.

I became excited the other day when I discovered that a person can take a bicycle along on the bus. The front of our city bus has a bike carrier. Although it only holds 2 bikes, I've only seen one person take advantage of that perk. I, however, stowed the idea away. I'd like to work on riding my bike farther and farther...and now there is a way to get back if I get pooped out!

I have noticed that the number of riders on our bus have increased. When I first started riding in August, the numbers of folks per trip was very few. Sometimes I was the only one riding - possibly because of the time of day. Lately the buses have been busy with lots of people riding. I've yet to see a completely full bus, but I've not seen an empty bus on the routes that I ride. So...I would agree with the article I linked above that ridership is up.

S~

Getting Ready for Winter

The past few days have brought the first taste of chilly days and colder nights. The temperature change was rather shocking to the body, as the lead in days were oddly warm, more like July in our area. The huge difference (80+ degrees one day, and 35 degrees the next) makes one know that its time to start doing something about the tasks that need completed before the snow falls.

The tomato plants that I want to try to save needed covering the past few nights. I'd forgotten how much I get annoyed with having to do that. I am working on a solution to the problem, building some "hoop houses" over the top of the plants I most want to nurture for a few more weeks. Hoops are easy to build. All it takes are some flexible plastic pipe, some kind of stake to slip both ends of the pipe onto, and some plastic to drape over the series of ribs created by staking a series of bowed pipes over the various plants. I have to admit, however, that this is my first time trying this myself. I selected the tomato plants that seem to be doing the very best at this point in time, and so I will be trying to keep them going into November. My goal is until possibly Thanksgiving, however some really cold days and lots of snow can undermine that hope.

With the price of gas and heating fuel, the thing that has most been on my mind is solving the winter heat situation. From my past experiences living in Montana, I do have some skills that I am "pulling back out" so to speak, and will apply to my current place. One is getting a woodstove installed...hopefully...if local code and the insurance doesn't prevent this process. Another option is to build my greenhouse again on the front deck (the one I used for raising my plants), and vent the warm air it generates into the livingroom. That is fairly simple to do, and so it will be a piece of my projects. A third option is to create a barrier to our upstairs to hopefully hold some of the heat in the areas we "most live in". That means installing a sliding door on the stairs. We have one, so its just the work to get it in. Other things that we can do include making sure that windows have good seals, that windows that can generate some solar heat are accentuated to do so...my husband wants to try putting up some black felt, and then again to prevent heat loss, sewing up some window quilts and installing them.

Lots of activities...I have no idea if we will have the physical energy to get it all done before the first snow. At least knowing what to do...having the list....gives a starting place. I guess its more of deciding which place to start.

(I tend to get too many going at once!)

Of course on top of all those things is just the day-to-day chores, cleaning house being one that is the perpetual task of never-ending work. So....guess its time to get back at it on this Sunday afternoon.

S~

More Bus Adventures

Riding the city bus means that you experience joining others in their daily journey. Many of the riders are regulars, with the bus being their only means of transportation around the city. Being a small city with 6 bus routes, and the rotation of bus drivers from route to route, the regulars call each other by name, and greetings are shared with the bus drivers. Its a community of people that have come to know a little bit about each other due to the minutes spent together on the bus, traveling to and from destinations.

I rode the bus to work on Friday late morning. The bus had far more riders than what I typically see earlier in the day. Interestingly, some were the regulars that I've met at those earlier times, or on my ride home. A new experience was that the bus picked up an elderly man in an electric wheelchair scooter. The driver had some difficulties with getting the lift to deploy, but eventually the lift did its service, and the man joined the rest of us on our morning trip. He was on his way to do grocery shopping with his wife. It was great to see that the bus could easily accommodate his needs, something that I would never have seen on the city buses I rode 40 years ago when I was kid. The loading and unloading did put the bus a little behind schedule, but other things do that too...like when lots of high school students ride to school, or the bus has to take me out to my work place.

The interesting interaction for me happened when I got to one of the transfer points where I change buses. It is by a chain store, and after I got off the bus, one older gentleman that had been seated a couple seats from me, kindly came up to me and asked if I could help him. He was Hispanic and seemed to have trouble conversing in English. He wanted to know if the store had a vision center that could fix his glasses. He showed me that the screw was missing and his lens had fallen out. I showed him where the vision center was, and he went on his way to have his glasses repaired.

I pondered on this interaction after I got onto the bus that would take me to my work. I thought about all the other folks that had been riding on the bus, and wondered why he picked me from the many. Maybe it was because I was the only "professional" riding the bus, or maybe it was because I was close to his age and had a kind face. I will never know. I did have a warm feeling, though, about having helped the man find his way. I thought how if I'd been driving in my car, I probably would never have had that interaction. I can still see his kind face, and the polite way he asked his question.

Riding the bus. The other thing I enjoyed on my journey was the ability to look out the window at the scenery. The bus drives along the lake shore, and the lake on Friday morning was a deep blue green, with waves rolling into shore. I enjoyed the autumn sunshine sparkling off the water, the blue sky meeting the water on the horizon, while I prepared to begin my work day.

S~