Everyone who has ever travelled on a bus before, school or otherwise, knows they can certainly have their drawbacks. They can be overly crowded, dirty, excessively loud, or miserably hot. But the worst thing that can happen is for a bus to break down when you need it the most.
This very stroke of misfortune was experienced by the WS Chorus on their April trip to Chicago.
Leaving at 10pm on a Thursday night, the chorus took two charter busses on the trip, affectionately named Bus 1 and Bus 2. Bus 1, which was carrying half of the WS Chorus, broke down and had to pull over to the side of the road for about two hours due to a broken cooling pipe in the engine.
The breakdown occurred about an hour out into the trip in Maryland, and it left students stranded for a long while, waiting for a repair man to arrive to save the day (night).
“It was really warm so they let a handful of people off the bus to get some fresh air, but it was the middle of the night so they didn’t really want us outside,” said junior Brooks Todd.
Todd was on Bus 1 that night and went through the full experience of the breakdown.
Upon learning of Bus 1’s breakdown, Bus 2’s driver decided to patiently circle around in anticipation of Bus 1’s repair. Eventually, as minutes turned into hours, Bus 2’s driver decided to drop off his passengers at a nearby gas station and go back to pick up the passengers from Bus 1.
Students were annoyed by this significant inconvenience, but they did manage to make light of the situation. Many of the students found ways to pass the time, such as playing on their phones, making conversation with each other, or sleeping through the mishap altogether.
Just as Bus 2 made it back to Bus 1 to pick up the stranded passengers, the repair man arrived and fixed the issue.
Meanwhile, back at the gas station where Bus 2’s passengers were waiting, the mood of the chorus experienced a brief dip as this inconvenience went on for a couple hours.
“I was more annoyed than discouraged,” said sophomore Alex Park. “Being left on the side of the road in the middle of the night is less than pleasant.”
However, the chorus remained optimistic about their trip and upcoming competition in Chicago.
After the breakdown, their journey got underway again and the WS Chorus was able to sleep a little bit more soundly that night. Clearly, the breakdown wasn’t a bad omen as the event in Chicago turned out to be a great time.
“All our choirs performed really well. The weather was a bit rough but all in all I think everyone had a good time,” said Todd. “I know I did.”