Thankfully, this isn’t a picture of hail damage on the bus. It is a picture of hail damage on my real car… but at least that has comprehensive insurance!
Crazy storm rolled through on Tuesday night – of course I had driven the bus to a friend’s place for a friendly game of poker… It started with a few rain drops while I was slowly but surely giving away all my precious poker chips. I thought to myself “hmm might be driving home in the rain.. won’t be the first time” Then all hell broke loose – huge chunks of ice start raining down – biggest hail I’ve ever seen. I’m freaking out, Noelle is calling me… she’s freaking out. The poor bus is sitting entirely exposed in the parking lot!! I run out into the storm, hail smashing down around me, fling the cargo doors open, the sound inside the bus reverberating off the sheet metal was deafening – I grabbed the blanket that covers the rear seat, flung that up on the roof – grabbed the thick rubber floor mat, hefted that up on the roof. I got most of the roof covered and ran back inside completely soaked!
Fast forward 10 minutes, I dominated the newly restarted poker game, and decided I better get that bus back home and safe in the garage. The bus definitely took care of me on the way back – pouring down rain, massive wind, flooded out roads, and hail, more hail – we drove through it all; the roads were basically empty, and I roared that thing all the way home. The engine was strong, the bus felt solid, I pushed it hard. Finally pulled into the garage – safe! I did a cursory check of the roof – definitely some paint chipped off, but it doesn’t look like there’s any real damage – whew! My real car wasn’t so lucky…
I spent some time Wednesday airing out the bus and garage – glad we survived the storm!
