By Bus - Part 7 and Help Wanted

Hello FFFs,
Yes, you are still getting the next part of Vicki's travels, but I also needed your help, your input, your advise, your two cents worth.

Here's the situation:
After this story, I don't have any other short stories written. I can post a little more of "Dylan's Story" and another section of "Hymns in the Hills" but that's all the new things I have that can be posted. You see, with trying to write two books (okay 4, but two aren't top priority right now), finish my website, write blog posts for Read Another Page, work on the big project of the Bike Trips, plus adding teaching writing this fall again, I just don't have time to keep trying to fit in short stories just for this blog. I was trying to figure out how I did it before. :P I guess I wasn't so focused on my books. And I didn't have a website, or 33 bike trips to turn into a book. 
So, the question is, what should I do about this blog after this story is finished?

• A.) Keep posting until I run out of new things and then shut the blog down.

• B.) Post until I run out of new things and then leave the blog up but don't do anything with it.

• C.) Finish the new things and then start re-posting the old stories from when I first started. 

• D.) Leave the blog up and post whenever I get a short story written.

• E.) Post any short stories on Read Another Page instead of this blog.

• F.) Forget writing books and only write short stories.

• G.) Open the blog for other writers to "guest post" their short stories.

• H.) Something else.

Please help! Give me your opinion. I don't want to lose my loyal fiction fans because I'm too busy to write short stories all the time. I don't want to completely shut this blog down as I've been posting every Friday for about 7 1/2 years! But I just can't keep it up. My books are calling louder than the short stories. ;) I have too many other things going on right now. Maybe later I could come back with more short stories, but I don't know. So please, tell me what you think!

I have been enjoying both "Finding Joy" and "TCR-6" as they've been moving along. Not racing this week, but moving steadily. Hopefully tonight and tomorrow night will be productive days too because next week we'll have 4 of my nieces and nephews from Tuesday–Sunday. No time for writing then.

Okay, I'm going to be looking forward to your answers. Thanks. And enjoy the next part of this story.

By Bus with Vicki

Part 7

When she reached the very back, she stopped. Now where could they have gone? “Maybe the driver put them in the overhead,” she thought, catching a glimpse of the doors above the seats. “I’ll go ask him.”
    Staggering back up the aisle and trying not to fall on any of the sleeping passengers, Vicki at last made it to the very front. “Excuse me,” she said clearly, yet quietly.
    The driver glanced at her in the mirror. “Yes?”
    “I can’t find my bags. Did you put them in the overhead place above the seats?”
    “No, I don’t touch the things the passengers bring on the bus, just their luggage that goes underneath.” He turned and looked at her momentarily.
    Vicki gave a gasp. “Oh, what happened to the new driver?” She was suddenly wide awake.
    “Huh?”
    “The driver that drove us from where I got on introduced me to the new driver when we got to the station, but it wasn’t you.”
    Again the driver looked at her. “Miss, where are you going?”
    “San Jose, California.”
    The driver drew a long breath almost like a whistle before he spoke. “Well, you’re headed for Montana right now.”
    “Montana? But I don’t want to go to Montana. How can that be?”
    “You got off your other bus, right?”
    “Yes, but only for a few minutes. I was going to call my parents, but–”
    The driver interrupted. “Then you probably got on the wrong one.”
    “But I saw Mr. Newspaperman get on this one, and he was on the bus when I got on this morning.”
    “He probably had to take a different bus at the last station.”
    Vicki sat down in a seat behind the driver. It was strange to have a conversation with a man in a mirror, but she couldn’t see the driver’s face any other way. “Well, can’t you just turn around and take me back to the station? The other bus might not have left yet.”
    “That’s about two hours behind us.”
    “Two hours,” echoed Vicki, disbelief written all over her face. “But I didn’t go to sleep. I’m sure I didn’t. At least . . . I don’t think I did.” For a long time she sat in total silence trying to make herself realize that she, Vicki Rogers, had gotten on the wrong bus and was now going, not to her sister’s in California, but north to Montana. At last she spoke. “Do I have to go all the way to Montana?” She was thinking about the money it was going to cost to get a new ticket to California.
    “No, I’ll see what I can figure out when we get to the next station. You’ll be late getting to your destination, but we’ll make sure you get there.”
    The driver’s words were a welcome relief. “Thank you. But when will the next station be?”
    “Not for a while. You might as well go back to sleep again.” The driver looked at her in the mirror and smiled.
    Vicki smiled back. This was certainly an interesting trip she was taking. After tucking her purse between herself and the back of the seat, she curled up right where she was and closed her eyes. “And Mom and Dad think I’m on the right bus. At least they won’t be worried about me. Well, I wanted adventure. Now I have it. A lot of it. They’ll probably never let me ride another bus again as long as I live.” She yawned widely, and shifted a little. “Then I may as well enjoy this trip.” With those thoughts, she fell asleep.

    When she next awoke, the bus was coming to a stop. All was still dark, but Vicki thought she could detect a faint glow in the east. “But it might be a city,” she decided. Stretching, she remembered that she was on the wrong bus.
    Turning around after parking the bus, the driver looked at Vicki. Her headband was about to slide off the back of her head, she had an impression of her purse handle on her cheek, and she didn’t appear very awake. “Good morning, young lady,” he greeted her. “I want you to promise me you won’t step foot off this bus until I tell you to. I’m going to go see what I can do about getting you to where you are supposed to go.”
    Vicki promised solemnly that she wouldn’t stir from her seat without his permission. While she waited, she adjusted her headband and pulled her sweater closer. The warmer jacket her mother had insisted she take was in the other bus. “And here I am going farther north than Mom had planned. I wonder how I’m to get back to the right bus.”
    At last the driver came back with another man. Quietly he called Vicki off the bus. “This is Mr. Lynwood, the station master. You are to stay with him until transportation can be arranged to get you back on the right route. Please don’t get lost!”
    “I won’t. I’ll stay right with him.”
    Moments later the bus had pulled away and Vicki was sitting in a seat inside the quiet and almost deserted station. Though she had many questions, she didn’t ask any because Mr. Lynwood was busy talking on the telephone. Clutching the handle of her purse, the girl swung her feet and  yawned, letting her eyes wander around the empty room. They rested on a large clock. “I didn’t know it was quarter after three in the morning,” she thought. “No wonder I’m still tired.”
    Mr. Lynwood came over. “All right, young lady, we are going to attempt to catch the bus that left here fifteen minutes ago. A friend of mine who works for the sheriff’s department is going to take you in his car. That bus will take you to the station where you should have been had you not gotten on the wrong bus"

Have you ever gotten in the wrong car, bus, train, or something?

What would you do if you discovered you were heading in the wrong direction?

And what should I do about this blog?