PORT TOWNSEND – Behind a parking lot full of Jefferson Transit buses, Missy contentedly munches on grass in her new corral among berry brambles and wild roses.
The chocolate brown Arabian mare with a long black mane became Desiree Williams’ transportation to and from work at the bus company on Tuesday.
“We used to just joke about it,” Williams, a maintenance clerk, said from her desk in an office loft overlooking Transit’s bus maintenance bays at the corner of Upper Sims Way and Hancock Street.
But Williams and her Transit colleague Betty Mysak got serious about riding to work after gas prices soared well past $3 a gallon.
So why don’t they ride the bus?
“They’re horse aficionados,” said Transit General Manager Dave Turissini.
“It gives them one more opportunity to ride.”
Transit employees already use a variety of alternative forms of transportation, such as bicycles and scooters to get to work, Turissini said, so horse power was a natural.
“They put the corral up at their own expense,” he added.
While Williams rode to work for the first time on Tuesday, Mysak – a Transit schedule dispatcher who was not working Tuesday – is expected to ride into work for the first time today, said Turissini.
Williams said she got up at 5:30 a.m. to saddle up her 15-year-old mare and ride to work.
It took her about an hour to travel the 4.5 miles from her home.
She declined to say where she lives.
She said that Mysak will ride her quarterhorse, 31-year-old Cocoa, from her home in the Hastings and Howard streets area.
