Jackson Hole Wyoming …. The stillness of the morning wraps around me and the warmth of the coffee cup in my hand, helps me to appreciate what the road I have traveled, has brought me to this morning. The hard bench of the picnic table seems like only a minor inconvenience as I soak up the grandeur of Jackson Hole, and this wonderful spring like morning. High up in the branches of a stately lodgepole pine, I hear the familiar call of a Blue Jay and all is well in my world.
My life seems serene and circumspect, and then the GM Diesel in the old 4107 roars to life! Blue smoke diesel exhaust fills the air, and like a gentle fog, engulfs everything in sight.
Damn old bus I think to myself, “I wish he would just leave.”
That is the bad thing about early risers, they fire up at just barely the crack of dawn, and if they are driving some poorly maintained exotic relic of the late forties or fifties, they do not have any air pressure at all. So they will run the old bus for what seems like a lifetime, before they are ready to release the brakes and leave the campground.
This in turn, does not make us many friends in the community of man.
I used to hate old buses with a passion, I did not care how slick they were or how many hours the operator had put into them, to me they were smoke belching monsters that ran far too long in the campground before they finally left. I really disliked them because they were noisy and I was often still sleepy.
Many a time found me not a big supporter of bus folk. Their loud pipes, noxious fumes and seemingly callous attitude toward other campers did not enamor me to them at all. That school of thought was fostered mainly because I did not understand the methods and benefits of good maint. and the headache and anxiety of bad air lines.
Now days, it is not so bad, I understand buses and bus people a little bit more than I used to. This kind of makes me a little sympathetic to their needs.
Daddy’s Hobby our bus, can sit for several days and still fire right up and move out, immediately, because it doesn’t have a whole lot of air leaks and will hold a ready supply of sail boat fuel whenever I need it.
Another thing changed.
They say old habits are hard to break, and to some point, that is true. I no longer get up early and hit the road to get a good start on the day. We kind of linger a little, sip on the coffee, sit around and while away the time, watch the parade out the front gate, and when we are ready, we fire it up and we leave.
So here it is, the take away, where the rubber meets the road. I have found out, albeit somewhat late in life, that if you are in a hurry you should not be driving a bus. If you don’t want to make new friends and impress the locals, you leave at a decent hour.
And if you can, you try your best to route yourself thru Jackson Hole, Wyoming, because it is a really neat place, and worth more than one visit in this lifetime.
Watch those right handers …
OOO
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