Pam & Mary’s Big Bus Adventure – Day 1

Rolla, MO to Nashville, TN

For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever!

2 Corinthians 4:17

This morning started off with a beautiful sunrise and lots of energy. There were 2 bus trips leaving the office this morning so the place was hopping. We had 8 passengers leaving from Rolla and planned to pick up the additional 7 in St Louis. As a little perk, USA Tours will pick people up from anywhere in Missouri. We headed East toward St Louis on I44 around 8 AM. Right on time. For almost an hour. Then the bus driver pulled over to the side of the road. Uh oh! When I asked him what was going on, he said that we had thrown a belt, but no worries because a mechanic was coming from the office in Rolla with a belt and they’d have it taken care of in no time. Sure enough, the mechanic arrived in about 45 minutes and put on a new belt. But unfortunately that wasn’t the problem, just the symptom. They decided it was something else and called for someone else to bring the needed parts to fix it. Since this was going to take a while, in an attempt to save time, we decided to have the people in St Louis bussed to us to eliminate the St Louis stop. Every time a semi truck went by it rocked the bus so we told the passengers that this little thrill ride would be thrown in free of charge and tried to convince them to yell, “whee” every time a truck went by. Plus luckily we broke down along a stretch lined with trees almost about to kinda start changing colors. Everything went as planned and so after a little 3 hour Fall Colors Viewing/Semi Truck Thrill Ride we were on our way. By skipping another bathroom stop as well as the St Louis stop, we got to Metropolis to see the Superman Museum only an hour later than we had planned.

The bus began moving right as we were seating everyone at the tables for lunch. We served a delicious lunch of pulled pork, tomato pie, green beans, cream corn and Southern Pound Cake with strawberries for dessert. The tomato pie was a big hit.

After Metropolis, we went through Paducah, KY and on to Nashville. Since the passengers had all been such troopers this morning the company paid for everyone’s dinner tonight at Cracker Barrel.

After dinner we went directly to our hotel where most of the guests went right to sleep while Mary and I started the chicken enchiladas for tomorrow in our hotel room. We both felt like we were still swaying on the bus. Kinda like the sensation you get after boating all day. But this lasted longer. I’m still swaying. I guess balancing while walking up and down the bus isles did a number on my equilibrium. Or someone slipped me some drugs when I wasn’t looking.