Riding a Rock Star Bus!

I ride a couple of different shuttle busses to and from work depending on whether I'm heading to the fitness center as part of the process.

Yesterday, instead of the rickety old short bus we normally get, that majestic thing you see in the picture showed up. It's probably temporary and it's not on the route I ride most of the time, but it was awesome to ride in a bus that was quiet and smooth and, well, awesome.

I've written before about these shuttles. To update a bit, Jose did graduate to a big bus but not to a rock star bus. I still see him occasionally as he now drives the primary Caltrain to Campus bus (which I rarely get to take).

He was replaced by Kim who made the talkative Jose seem like a mute. Kim talked a lot. I knew an awful lot about her family well before I knew her name. But Kim was a good driver and handled the route well. She made it clear that she wanted something more though, so I knew she would be gone soon. (Side note - I heard her talking to some of the other drivers about how hard it is to cash their Serendipity paychecks due to lack of funds. Based on this, I'm amazed she or any of the others stuck around at all.)

In any case, she is gone and we now have another driver who is weirdly quiet. She hasn't run over anything yet, so she may be alright. But it's weird to not know about her sister's son's job in Denver (or whatever).

That's it - move along...

PS: I forgot to pass along this very weird story. A coworker takes a rock star bus from SF. A couple of weeks ago, the driver stopped along the freeway about halfway and apparently went to the bathroom (on the bus or along its side I don't know). He then started going again and made the first campus drop offs without incident. To make the last drop offs, he has to get back on the freeway for one exit then back off. Except he didn't get back off. He passed the exit, and the next one, and the next one. He finally got off the freeway and wandered around in some neighborhood for a bit. 

One of the riders tried to talk with the driver, but he was unresponsive. Finally, all of the riders (about five or so at this point) walked up to the front and asked to be let out, and he let them out, and then left. So here are five people standing on a street corner with only a vague idea of where they are exactly. Finally a shuttle was sent to get them. In the meantime, Serendipity was still trying to contact the rogue rock star bus. 

So maybe rock star busses aren't guaranteed bliss after all.