Entry# 4 Road Trip Home

The Longest Day

Its April 26, 2018 and I am waiting out front of man’s apartment whom I have yet to meet and am relying on to deliver a portion of my future. Doug, a double decker bus driver for years has agreed to drive my bus to Whistler, and as such we are about to spend an extremely stressful day together. To make the situation even more tense, the night before the trip I had nowhere to go so I chose to sleep in my truck in a movie theatre parkinglot. Throughout the night the constant thought of a mid trip bus break down kept me awake,  so much so  that around 3 am I figured it was best if I just nervously paced the parkinglot till sun up. My main concern for the bus is that a regular tow truck cannot move it if there is an issue. Due to the bus’s height, it cannot be low-boid, and due to its length it needs a “wrecker” to tow it. A wrecker bills out at  around $100 an hour from the moment they leave their yard till they get back, which could be multiple days in this scenario. Anyhow, worrying about it doesn’t mean it aint gonna happen, so I bottle it up and Doug and I head to Sooke. The two of us decide that the bus route will be Sooke, Victoria, Nanaimo, Horseshoe Bay, Whistler, drop the bus off and turn around and drive Doug down to Tsawwassen to walk on the ferry  and be back home in Victoria by night fall. Although we have checked our chosen route with transportation route of over height vehicles, we still need to keep an eye out for low powerlines, signs, and branches.

Once in Sooke, John warms up the bus and catches up with Doug while I tape on all my day permits and fuel the bus. Doug then hops in the bus and takes off, I figure he will be slow so I give him alittle time  to gain some ground while I keep chatting with John. Once I say my good byes to John, I head off to catch up with Doug… it seems I underestimated his speed as I can’t seem to catch up!

Just as I make the turn off for Nanaimo I get a text from Doug saying exactly what I feared, the bus has an issue and that he has pulled over. At this point I am still far from the bus and have a healthy amount of time to think about all the things that could have gone wrong; it overheated, the transmission blew, the engine seized, the second story hit a tree and crushed like a tin can. As the bus comes into view, I start frantically looking for coolant on the road, or smoke coming from the top of the bus, but no issues are immediately noticeable. I walk up the side of the bus and Doug is pulling on something at the front. As I come around I see that he is holding a portion of the windshield. It seems the pressure of the air hitting the flat front of the bus + the old sun baked windshield gasket resulted in the windshield slipping from the gasket and pushing back towards Doug’s face. Luckily, the windshield wiper motor stopped the sheet of glass from hitting Doug, however, it did break the laminated glass in multiple places. Doug and I figure it is best to remove the windshield entirely to ensure no glass chunks fly into his face while driving. At this point we have only made about a ¼ of the days journey, and the ferry reservation for a double decker bus (a specific ferry takes truly over height vehicles) is coming up quick. We have no time to remedy the situation, and thankfully Doug being a great sport agrees to carry on without a windshield, after all we are far from typical highway speeds. With a lack of options and ticking clock we head out over the Malahat Highway. Although the bus is climbing the hills fairly easily, the bus is only doing about 45km/hr which is really starting to piss other road users off. Around the top of the Malahat Pass, we pull over to allow some vehicles by. While pulled over I walk up the bus to see if everything is alright, checking for burning smells and fluid leaks,  when I notice something different on the second story. One of the windows seems considerably cleaner than the others, almost like there isn’t any glass in it at all. Now up to this point I have been behind the bus at all times, and have not seen a window fall  out of the bus or any shattered glass on the road. Despite not seeing either of these things there is one thing for sure, there is no window in the frame anymore. It seems that the air coming in the front of the bus from a lack of a windshield had no where to go but up the stairs and push outward on all the windows till one gave way. It must have burst with such pressure that the window flew deep into the ditch line where I couldn’t see it. Although the missing window is shocking, there really isn’t an issue to fix, the window is gone. With no time to waste, and nothing to fix we head out for Nanaimo as its looking like we are going to miss the boat.

Arriving at the Ferry Terminal 10 minutes before they start loading, the people at the terminal counter are not happy with me. They begin to argue that the height stated over the phone is not the case, and that the bus is too tall for the ferry. After a few tense minutes while they re measured the bus with a long stick they allowed us to get the dang bus on that dang boat with 3/4 inch to spare! Once on the Ferry, Doug and I over hear several people talking about the double decker bus onboard with excitement.  I am not only happy to hear that other people share the enthusiasm for the bus, but also that they have a curiosity about the bus’s journey. Once in Horseshoe Bay we head down to the bus and ensure it starts before they begin to offload the Ferry. The bus fires up right away and we unload onto the mainland and head up the Sea to Sky to the Callaghan Valley.

It only takes a few kilometers to notice an entirely different energy towards the bus from people on the mainland. I guess, because Victoria still utilizes double decker buses as transit vehicles, islanders are used to seeing them. However, on the mainland, people are not use to them, and we are getting tons of honks, waves and double takes all the way up the Sea to Sky. By the time we reach the Callaghan Country parkinglot we are both so happy, yet so tired, as it has been very overwhelming day. At this point, it really hasn’t sunk in that I have made this crazy purchase and successfully got it to where it needed to be. Instead, I am just focused on getting Doug back down to the coast, so I can come back up that night and start removing seats from the bus. Afterall, I am leaving for Mackenzie, BC in the morning for a 5 month Wildfire fighting contract and this will be the last day I see the bus till the fall.