CyberPlainsman staff

LHS athletes who have participated in Wyoming high school sporting events are very familiar with long bus trips.

Wyoming bus trips are like none other; you can’t just drive 20 minutes and be at a different high school like in the Denver metro area. The closest 4-A school to LHS is Cheyenne Central about an hour away. Some of the farthest away are Campbell County High in Gillette, Evanston High, Riverton High and Sheridan High. All more than four hours away if you have good weather.

"The trip to Evanston is long and tiring, but it gives the team a lot of time to have fun and bond," says senior Kaelee Aegerter about basketball trips.

Most of the longer bus trips are over-nighters. "Over night trips are really fun because you get to stay at a hotel with all your friends," said junior swimmer Nicholas Spackman. These trips usually begin on Friday and end on Saturday, occasionally teams will have to miss most or all of school on Friday to compete. After the Friday competition the team will check into the hotel and be ready to go for the next day.

After the game/meet on Saturday the team will have a long ride home and arrive sometime between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m.

"The mood, atmosphere and overall attitude amongst the bus-dwelling travelers is heavily based upon whether or not the driver does them the courtesy of regulating and controlling a comfortable bus temperature," said senior diver Nathan Shumway reminded of a very chilly Green River bus trip.

"On the Green River trip we could see our breath on the bus, and that was the only regular season meet we lost," senior diver Levi Leinen.

There are many factors on a trip that have an effect on the level of enjoyment of the ride. Some of the biggest factors are the type of bus, bus driver, number of freshmen and your coach. There are two types of busses-the cruisers, which have more seats, tinted windows and are roomier, and there are regular buses, which are cold, cramped and have fewer seats. The quality of bus driver is to make you less nervous. It can be fun to have lots of freshmen on the bus to pick on; unless you have a bigger team then it makes the trip less enjoyable because of the lack of seating. The determining factor of whether the trip is fun or not is the attitude of your coach.

"I think if the coach wants to have fun it makes the bus trip a lot better" says junior track participant Tenae Mascarenas.

"The over-all comfort of the trip relies on the captains ability to manage the seating arrangements," said sophomore swimmer Landon Sebart. Freshmen have to double up in front, sophomores sometimes double up, juniors almost never double up and all freshmen will share the same seat before seniors double up.

Bus trips are going to be one of the most vivid memories an LHS athlete will ever have. To have an enjoyable high school athletic career you need to make the best of the long rides. For a high traveling team a person can log thousands of miles and countless house on the bus, and whether you are going to have fun depends on you attitude.