A time I was lost.... Once upon a time back in the dark ages, I was a school bus driver on New Year's Day driving a group of children (whose disability required wheelchairs) to the Rose Bowl Parade in Pasadena. It was a last minute assignment--Dispatch called me at 4 a.m. and asked could I do it, but I'd be running late. I hustled out of bed, into my uniform, and without any coffee, into my car to the bus yard.

On the freeway to Pasadena with the load of students, I was fine, but when I got onto the city streets, with everything blocked off or one-way or re-organized, I had no idea how to get to the address where I was told the youngsters would be offloaded from my bus and escorted to a viewing platform. If you've ever watched the Parade on TV on New Year's Day (or been there in person), you can imagine how different and confusing and crowded everything was.

As I was driving up and down streets, peering this way and that for a familiar landmark, a police officer flagged down my yellow school bus and asked me where I was going. When I told him, he escorted me down Colorado Avenue, he told me he'd been expecting me and please follow him. His motorcycle's lights flashing, crowds of people cheering and waving on both sides (the parade was about to start) and into the venue where they were waiting for me I went. I felt like the parade vanguard!

I expected to have to wait in the bus in the darkened garage until the parade was over so I could drive them back. I began to wonder if there would be at least a restroom available. But the hosts had arranged seating for me as well, and breakfast and COFFEE. Front row seats to the Rose Bowl Parade, breakfast; I was in 7th heaven and being paid double time and a half to boot.

It was an experience I'll never forget.

[this was expanded from a comment in WheresMyPlan's blog.]