The Cool Bus

by J. T. Altenberg

I awoke to the familiar sound of snorting and grunting from the Cool Bus as the engine started up. As the bus lugged out of rest stop 17, I climbed out of my upper bunk and began sweating from the thick Arizona heat that oozed in through the cracked windows. It may sound pretty awful: no air conditioning, no bathroom, no TV, no Internet…and it was. I didn’t plan to spend anytime on the road during summer, but for some reason my dad had the brilliant idea of going on a family road trip the summer before my older brother left to college. However, this family road trip was a little different than other road trips.

I spaced out to MySpace, while my half eaten lean cuisine sat cold, next to me on dining room table. My dad stared off into his cyber-world too, at the breakfast counter, as well as my brother, in the office. My mom wasn’t there to yell at us though because she was laying back in Puerto Rico, sipping on Bacardi Rum and having relaxing time. But my dad didn’t seem to mind because now he was able to have all the computer time he wanted without his nagging wife to tell him what to do. And he, of course, proved to take advantage of this by all means that he could.

I stood my lazy-ass up, snatched a cold bite of chicken, and walked over and flopped on the couch. I powered on the TV and turned to MTV to watch some spring break show. My mind wandered off into thinking about summer, and thinking about at whose house keggers would take place, and who would get faded and pass out in parks for the night. I wondered what interesting people I would meet while wandering around Shattuck at 1 a.m. and, in general, how I would fill my time for this coming summer. A commercial came on, so flipped to some cooking channel, and suddenly hunger struck so I got up and to grab another piece of soggy chicken. When I was walking back to the TV, however, my dad called me into the kitchen to come check something out on his computer.

He called my little brother and my sister too (who had been playing with barbie dolls in her room, most likely), and when we all gathered around the computer screen he looked back at us and asked excitedly: “What do you guys think about a road trip this summer?”

My brother, sister and I looked at each other, puzzled and then looked back at my dad.

“Okay, what do you guys think about a road trip in this?”

My dad turned back to his computer screen, moved his mouse over a minimized web browser window and clicked on it. An eBay window popped up. I saw a very bizarre photo of a school bus painted in hippy retro colors. Then my jaw dropped to the word: SOLD!

“Whaa?” I said to my dad in disbelief, with one eyebrow half cocked.

“But wait, check out the inside too!” He exclaimed and clicked on link to send him that sent him to several more. I leaned in closer, as did my brother and sister and we looked at the pictures, awe-stricken. No. Dumbfounded. Well, actually, to tell the truth, I don’t even know what I was thinking. I was staring at a picture of a retro hippy school bus (which in the front had been painted over to spell -c-ool bus) and on the inside instead of seats for 50 school kids there were two couches in the front and a rugged floor. Then behind the second couch there was little kitchen area followed by bunks in the way back.

“Uhhhh, wait. You bought that?” my brother questioned my dad.

“Yup, $5000. 39 ft. long, 10-speed manual, made by International Motors. Pretty cool, huh?” my dad said, as proud as he’d be if he had just purchased a new computer gadget.

“What will we do with it?” my sister asked, still slightly behind in obtaining all the information we’d been talking about.

“We’ll go in a road trip! I’m not sure where yet, but I was think all across the country, we’ll go pick it up in Minnesota, and then drive to New York, then back to here!”

We all looked at him, still unsure how to react, then my sister exclaimed: “Wait, what does mom think?”

My dad looked up at us, then back to his computer screen.

“Oh, she doesn’t know yet.” he mumbled.

“What?? She doesn’t know?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll call her and tell her tomorrow morning, it’ll be fine.”

The next day, when my older brother returned home from a friend’s house, my dad told him about the new plans for the summer. And although my brother was rather reluctant to spend his graduating summer in a school bus, he gave in.

The hard part for my old man was convincing mom. After about 2 hours of a phone conversation that probably ruined my mom’s relaxed visit to Puerto Rico, my dad informed me and my siblings - of course, with a big smile on his face - that the plan was to travel Route 66. Great: summer ruined.

I grabbed the super jumbo sized Honey-Nut Cheerios that we had bought at Wal-Mart, sat down at the table and I poured myself a bowl. When we had first picked up the bus, we tore the couches out and built a table that we could eat at, and also it folded nicely down into a bed too, so that the bus could sleep our whole family.

As we cruised a long at our top speed of 54 mph, watching the hicks in the left lane zoom past, honking amusingly, my mom pulled out a map and studied the next adventure of our road trip.

“Next exit should put us on the highway towards the Grand Canyon,” my mom informed my dad. “Oh and look, we’re gonna pass through Monument Valley!”

I stared at her with a puzzled face, “Where?” I said through my mouth full of cereal.

“Monument Valley! Don’t you remember, those John Wayne movies?”

“Sorry mom, I can’t really remember, the 60’s and 70’s were kind of a blur for me.” My mom laughed.

“Monument Valley is a huge valley with enormous rocks in very odd formations. It’s where the cowboy John Wayne did a few famous scenes. We’re going to be there soon, before we reach the Grand Canyon!”

“Oh, interesting...” I said after finishing my last bite. I got up from the seat and began making my way back to my bunk.

“Oh, and Jereme, Monument Valley is one of the most...” My mom continued to talk but proceeded to climb into my bunk, hoping my dad would take over the automated Yeah’s and Oh really’s.

I grabbed my headphones and adjusted them so they were comfortable enough that I could lie on my side, and pressed play. As Taking Back Sunday played through my head, I squeezed levers on the window tightly, in order to shove the window down. It was a little cramped up in my bunk, because, although my bed was flat, the curve of the bus roof gave me less and less head space as I lay closer and closer to the window. But I didn’t really mind because I found it soothing to fall asleep with wind on my face, even though sometimes the bumps in the road would throw me towards the metal roof.

I looked out the window and observed signs such as a Mexican Hat 3 miles, and Steep climb 8%, next 2 miles, trucks use low gear. I thought a bit about whether there was any Mexican food in Mexican Hat but the thought didn’t last long for I was soon in a nap.

“Jereme wake up, look dude, look!”

My brother was shaking me and pulling aside the curtain on the back window, pointing out with an eager look. I slowly sat part way up and as I turned toward the window I smelled the nauseating, biting smell of diesel fuel. I slung my upper body of my bunk railing and peered out at seemed to be trailing cloud of dirty white smog.

“Does dad know?” I asked, suddenly more awake, (perhaps overcome with a little fear that engine may explode, or something of the like.)

“Yeah I’m pretty sure, judging by the fact that we are going up this hill at 20 mph.”

“Oh shit,” I heard my dad say from the bow of the bus, as I climbed out of my bed, eager to find out the newest episode in our bus trip.

“What’s happening dad?” I asked as I made my way up to the front.

We were just climbing an 8% grade and now we are going a up another 10% for the next half mile,” my mom answered for my dad, while he closely inspected all the gauges and checked how much coolant he had left in the bottle under his seat. He began tapping the temperature gauge.

“Crap,” he groaned under his breath, “Jereme the temperature gauge is broken, go look out the back and make sure the exhaust isn’t coming out black.”

“Ok.” I peered over at the temperature gauge, stuck at 90 degrees Fahrenheit, then made my way to the back window.

I pulled the rainbow colored blinds aside and inspected the condition of the exhaust as we strained up the hill at 12 mph.

“It looks ok, it’s getting a little darker grey, but not too bad,” I relayed up to the front of the bus.

“Ok, just keep a look out.”

I climbed into my bunk and pulled aside the curtains on the back and side of my bed, so I could glance over at the deep river valley next to which we’d been climbing up. I look around aimlessly while wondering what my friends had been doing back home. I noticed from afar a big cliff with an odd-shaped rock on it that looked somewhat like a sombrero. Ahhh, this must be Mexican Hat, I thought to myself, Damn, I really want some Mexican foo… but then realized that I had lost all attention from matter at hand: The exhaust. I moved away the curtain that had draped back over the window to notice that it had now become significantly darker. But just before I was about to inform my dad I heard cheer of relief.

“Look! It’s Monument Valley!” My mom shrieked.

I pulled my blanket off of me, and climbed down out of my bunk with high hopes to see this valley for myself. But as I turned around to look out the front, My eyes were not greeted with any kind of monumental valley, rather a hissing cloud of smoke that spontaneously burst from somewhere in the engine. My mom began panic as my dad slowed to a turn out he had spotted just before the eruption. As we sputtered to a stop, I peered out the window. We were in the middle of nowhere, on another planet. It was all red sand and nothingness. My Dad grabbed his gloves and the rest of coolant after reassuring us that the temperature gauge was now working, and got of the bus to look at the engine. This could be a while.

“Seems like we’re stuck on mars,” my brother groaned to me. I looked out at the great flat valley, and the odd plateaus and rocks that jutted probably more than 1000 ft. above it.

“Yeah. It’s whack. But whatever. Wanna go play catch?” I asked.

“Where?”

“Out there,” I pointed to the nothing that surrounded us.

We grabbed out mitts and stepped off the bus.

“I wish we were back at home, I could be doing such funner stuff,” my brother said to me, with slight irritation in his tone.

“Yeah, I didn’t want to go on this road trip, the bus is so slow and can’t go anywhere.”

“Yeah…Dude this is almost as bad as what happened to the Konelbergs on their houseboat,” my brother said after he threw the ball to me.

“Nah dude, this is way worse. One: they weren’t stuck in a desert. And two: they had other people there besides their families. And their cell phones actually worked.”

When my dad was 15, his family and 3 others took a house boating trip on the Mississippi River. 30 years later he decided to have a reunion this time with the next generation. After picking up the bus in Minnesota, we drove down to the small town of McGregor, Iowa to a little shanty houseboat rental place called Boatels. Here we met up with the same three families that my dad had grown up with and it turned out the same man had been working there since the 70’s and remembered my dad’s family last time around. He set all of us up with three boats all together. Two families shared the big new party boat, because they paid extra and the boat slept extra. The Konelbergs a family of six, got the new smaller boat, and we were left with the rinky-dink boat that was all battered up. One pontoon floated higher of the water than another so the boat was lopsided.

As we began to travel up the river we radioed back and forth between the boats. The man at Boatels only gave us a quick 5 minutes of training on the boats so we were figuring most of out as we went along. About a half hour into the trip we figure one thing out pretty quick: If your motor dies, make sure your anchor is attached to the boat. Steven Konelberg apparently had let his son take over driving for a second, and while we were all navigating our way up the river side by side like fighter planes (except going about 5 mph) their boat conked out.

Steven ran up to the steering wheel of the boat, raging at his son, and told him to throw anchor. The dad was none the more pleased when his son yelled back to him that the rope wasn’t connected and the anchor just sunk to the bottom. But where was the rest of the family? When we turned our boat around to chase their boat as it floated downstream, we noticed on the roof/deck of the boat Mrs. Konelberg and her three blond daughters lying out tanning. We realized that they hadn’t a clue what was going on until about 5 minutes later when the boat went crashing into the trees of a submerged island in the middle of the river. They suddenly got up screaming like ants had just attacked them, completely oblivious to last 10 minutes of mayhem.

While the Konelbergs were stuck in the trees, helplessly trying to start the motor, we called Boatels, and then tied up with the other boat, anchored, and made lunch. About an hour later the Konelbergs finally got their boat working, with some help from one of the mechanics, and came to tie up next to us for what was left over of lunch. Eventually we arrived at a little sandy island where we all decided, through a walkie-talkie conversation, we would stay the night. Although we managed to beach our yacht quite nicely, the others caused some panic among our neighboring boaters on the beach with their D-Day like docking maneuvers. No one got hurt though and everyone had a good laugh, except the neighbors, who regularly shot glances over at our drunken parents throughout the night.

“Yea, I guess you’re right this does suck pretty bad,” my brother said as I threw a curve ball back to him. “Dude, don’t you wish we could just get home all these places are so boring.”

“Yea, I guess. But it’s kinda nice not having shit to do, or always trying to occupy yourself. We are always just moving along.”

My sister was most excited about it out of all of us. She had been looking forward to it for the whole trip, and although she always denied it and told us to shut up, my brother and I knew that it was just so she could brag to her friends. I was looking forward to going to the four corners as well because I wanted to brag too, but when we got there, it was far less than we imagined. I had always thought about it when I was younger: A big park around it, a couple of stores and souvenir shops, maybe a big pole sticking out right in the middle of the corners. I wanted to live there when I grew up because I thought it would be cool to live in one state and then drive 5 minutes and work in another, and then later than night go out to dinner in a different one. But when my mom kept reading road signs as we got closer and closer, I realized my childhood dreams were far from the reality of the four corners. When we finally rolled up to the road that led to monumental man-made spot, I stared out the bus window: Vast dessert. We drove into a little parking lot where we had to pay $10 per person to get in and we got out of the bus in the 100˚ weather with the sun beating down, 0 humidity, and we walked to a little circular lot surrounded by dessert. Around the edge of the lot there were venders selling dream catchers, Navajo frybread and other Indian makings. At the end of lot was a big cement block on top of which people where standing and taking pictures. Hmmm, the four corners I thought. Behind that there was long row of maybe 15 port-a-potties, and an old battered motor home.

“Well, the four corners were pretty boring dude. But I guess we got some cool pictures, to show to our friends and stuff.”

I threw my brother the ball, but it hit the ground right in front of him, then rolled a ways past him. “You beezy.”

“Nah you’re the beezy for missing the ball, it bounced right in front of you,” I retorted.

“I guess. But not even, you’re the one who sprained your ankle doing the stupidest thing when we went biking in Utah last week.”

We had been in Moab, Utah for three days, and after going river rafting on the Colorado River and visiting every possibly bike shop we could in 24 hours, we found a spot to go biking.

For the trip my dad had bought everyone in the family a bike, and insisted we go on at least one biking trail together. While we went around all the bike shops, we asked all the shop owners good places to go.

“You’re not gonna find any good family routes here,” one shop owner said to my dad. But my dad insisted that there must be some possible trail we could all go on and we went off to another shop.

Moab is known for its “slick rock,” which is sandstone that was carved away by oceans millions of years ago. It appears very smooth and is easily ridden on by a bike, however, if you fall on it, it’s like sandpaper.

At the next shop we got a little more content shop owner and he told us a very cool place to check out.

“Yeah, there’s a great place. You just go about 3 miles up the road and there’s an obvious turn off; the only one in the next ten miles. Just follow it all the back into the valley and you’ll get to this cool flat slick rock area.”

The next day we left the RV campground in our Cool Bus and ventured off to slick rock. We were all looking forward to the biking expedition, but when we arrived to the turnout it was much different than we expected. The road was unpaved and very bumpy with some huge humps. My dad looked forward at the road then back at us and said, “Well, it looks like we’re going off-roading in a school bus.”

We made our way through the bumpy trail, bouncing up and down from the bus’s stiff shocks, and the trail gradually became sandier and sandier. We looked out hoping to find some slick rock close to us, but nearest seemed at least a mile away. We began to question whether we had even been on the right path, but we eventually found a sign leading us on.

When we finally got to the bike trail we were in awe. Next us were these huge landscapes of this smooth rock, where you could see where the water level had been centuries ago. When we got on top of the nearest 100 ft. high plateau it was just like the guy had explained. There were beautiful bowls and curves on the rock, naturally shaped by the ancient water. After biking around jumping off little natural jumps, my brother and I began dropping off some rocks. My older brother, being a big fan of down-hill biking was showing me how to drop off bigger stuff.

It all became very fun, and just when I had master the technique my dad said it was time to go. We made our way down the plateau but right at the bottom of it there was a little drop off. My older brother went off it.

“I’m not doing that, I’m just gonna walk around,” my dad said.

“Nah, look, it’s not that hard,” I said. I was confident I could do it after all the rocks my brother and I had gone off, and proceeded to show my dad. “You just go slowly. Watch.”

I rode towards the edge, but when my front tire went off, I realized I was completely wrong. I flew forward over the handlebars of my bike, landing on my wrists and, somehow, my ankle. My bike flipped over my head, and after a few dazed seconds, I sat up, feeling unharmed.

“Well, I guess I was wrong,” I said, standing up. “Shit! My ankle.” I yelled, falling right back down.

Back on the bus and through the off-road terrain, we went to the Moab City Hospital. The bus ride back was not very fun because the bouncing around in the bus plus my dad driving back fast caused extreme pain to my ankle.

I got pushed on a wheelchair to an X-ray room where I found out that luckily I only I had a sprained ankle. Slightly embarrassed by the fact that it was a stupid reason for a sprained ankle and because I had a cute nurse, I felt better when I heard they had already had 20 other bike injuries earlier that day.

“Yeah, that did suck, but it’s all good my ankle’s better now. That biking was hella fun though.”

“Yeah, you’re right, it was tight, I guess this trip isn’t that bad,” my brother said, throwing the ball back to me.

My mom called us back to eat some lunch and I realized overall, the trip was had been a good time and I had enjoyed the peace of mind that rolled along with the bare hills of route 66. I sat down at the table in the bus, and ate some crackers and fruit noting that we had been sitting there for 2 hours. I looked out over the peacefulness of Monument Valley, and noticed the sun cracking through clouds, when my dad suddenly ran back on the bus.

“Lets try this baby, see if she fires up this time,” he said in high spirits, sitting down in the driver seat. He put the key in the ignition and turned it. It grunted and snorted its familiar groans and then started up instantly. We were off to the Grand Canyon.