About The Portland Short Bus

The Portland Short Bus was born out of the divergent loves of Kyle & Nicole Pittman - Nicole’s love of Oregon wines and Kyle’s love of smoky dive bars, cheap whiskey, and excessive profanity. After years of frequent Sunday trips and increasingly popular organized tours for friends, we figured it was time to bite the proverbial bullet and pick up The Short Bus, affectionately dubbed Lucille.

Lucille is our 1990 GMC Vandura 3500 short school bus. She has a maximum passenger capacity of 13 adults. She shakes and rattles like any good bus should and on her last quarterly inspection, she received a completely clean bill of health from the ASE certified bus technicians at Western Bus, Inc. Lucille's commercial and general liability insurance meets the federal requirements. You may feel free to inspect our insurance prior to departure. Lucille is equipped with a stereo system in the passenger compartment, and it is capable of playing your music from most devices, either through USB or Auxilliary jacks.

Some Questions People Have Asked Us

Can you pick us up in Vancouver WA. Can we go to wineries on the Washington side of the Gorge?
Unfortunately, Lucille can only be legally operated within the state of Oregon.

So are you guys like, you know, wine snobs?
Not at all. We can’t tell you about the soil, we don’t know how long the french oak barrels have been aged, and we certainly do not swish and spit. We do what we like: Bumping 1990s hot jams, sipping delicious pinots, hanging out with fun loving people, and soaking up Oregon’s lush countryside from a hillside patio with a view.

How do you choose what wineries you visit?
We want what everyone else wants - to enjoy ourselves. So we base it on things that we find enjoyable. We use the following as our criteria.

• Awesome good humored staff.
• Excellent valley views (catching both the Cascades & the Coast Range on a clear day make us feel giddy. That, or the wine. Not sure which.)
• Good damn wine.
• Going to places we haven’t been...a whimsical turn up a dusty road sometimes yields incredible results.

Why a tiny school bus?
We aren't the type of folks who want to rent a limo or high-end party bus. Nothing against'em, it just is not our cup of tea. Many limos and party buses are kind of like high end nightclubs & The Short Bus is like the cozy, raucous hole in the wall. That is where we are comfortable. We opted for a tiny bus because small groups are ideal to work with, and it is much easier for smaller buses to get to some of the many out of the way places.

Can I rent the Short Bus and NOT take it to wineries?
Definitely, we also do Portland metro area bar crawls. In fact, check our public tours page.

What about breweries?
You can certainly rent the bus for brewery tours, however, we are not beer people so we are probably not the best ones to be planning those tours. There is another excellent service with a focus on beer called Brewvana. Bonus points, because their bus is a short bus too!

You can rent the Short Bus for just about any reason - just as long as all passengers are all 21 years of age or older. Click here for more info