Travels with The Rayman

Good day my dear readers,

When last we met, we were in the throws of moving. Well, guess what! We are still in the throws of moving but there is light the end of our tunnel. Hot off the press…I made toast today in our apartment. 

In other news, we left our Willamette View (WV) habitat and drove to Pendleton, Oregon which is famous for the Pendleton woolen factory. It also boasts an Native American casino where we attended a convention of fellow rut seekers. This is a group known as Oregon-California Trail Association (OCTA) and every year they get together in a different place so we rut-seekers can go find those ruts. This was our virgin voyage. Around rut roaming was framed speeches, discussions, auctions, food and drink. However, this missile addresses the rut-roaming part of the equation…because where the Jacksons go, trouble can follow as I will now explain.

Ruts were made by the pioneers that traipsed across our continent in their covered wagons in the 1840s onward until train travel came along. The emigrants followed each other in huge wagon caravans…sort of an RV sort of experience except with a covered wagon and a total lack of conveniences, maps, GPS etc. 

At this juncture of the tale, it was Thursday morning and we were told to board bus number 2. The day before we were on bus number 1 and it was a good experience. When we climbed on board on bus number 2, we were the last on so we got the window you couldn’t see out of.  Here is a picture.

Imagine a bus company bringing a sightseeing bus with cloudy windows. We were not pleased.

Buses stop at railroad crossings. When we stopped, the driver opened and closed the door. But then the bus would not allow the driver to shift it in to forward or reverse. We were stuck. Everyone was ordered out of the bus and so we got out and mingled in the dusty road until we were told there was a building about 1/4 mile away where we could wait in the shade. So the bus group hiked up the road to the building which was like a big tool shed full of rusty parts, machinery, and two chairs. There were about 40 of us.

The trip organizers told us that two casino shuttles were on the way. So we waited about an hour and they arrived. They were glamorous and comfortable. We were feeling better. They whisked us off to a shady park and there we had our lunch under the shade of the maple trees. 

At this point, the organizers said that a new bus was coming so the casino shuttles were going to leave and if anyone wanted to skip the rut-roaming, they could return to the casino on a shuttle. We reasoned that another bus was being dispatched so we would wait and continue the rut-roaming.

The shuttles left and the same old bus showed up thereby sealing our fate of driving around without being able to see out the window. And because of the delay they took us to the same mission we had visited on bus number 1 the previous day. Ain’t that great?

From that point on, it was pure misery. The air conditioning stopped working, you could NOT open a window and so we boiled like crabs in a crab pot., and it was 98 degrees outside. It was hotter in the bus.

We did stop and see some ruts. Here is a picture of that adventure.

Then we hopped back on the bus to return to the casino. However, there was a fire and the 84 freeway had been shut down and our off-ramp was the final exit for ALL traffic eastbound. This ensured we could see the casino out of the front window of the bus but it took about and extra 30 minutes to exit the freeway so we could get off the dang bus. 

By this time I was ire-rich. When I openly complained one passenger quipped, “Well, I guess you would have not been a good pioneer.” I had to agree…to a point. It was an apple to oranges comparison. But I did get her meaning. I was being annoying.

So, I tried to keep quiet and grin and bear it.

Then four days later I popped off a letter to the organization to alert them that we came home with Covid and it was probably a result of the bus affair. And I thought they should know so they could alert the other bus passengers. Before I wrote the letter, I got the name of the bus company and called them to express my dismay. The lady was defending the indefensible so I asked her boss’s name. Called him and he said, “Well, this the first I have heard of this.” He promised to look into and thanked me for my call. I never heard from him again. 

The OCTA was very sympathetic and said they were taking steps so that it didn’t happen at next years annual convention in Colorado. Further, they were attempting to get refunds for the passengers.

Satisfied that I had been heard, I poured a stiff martini and enjoyed it with great gusto!

After pondering this at bit, I decided that my expectations were out of whack. We are the Jacksons. I am the author of travelswiththerayman.com  Of course this happened.