Bus ride

George sent me an article from the Washington Post about a night at the Washington DC bus station.

Ask him what he's seen down here, at the bus station at night, and he says, "Beautiful, what I haven't seen is the question."

HBO has nothing on this place, Ron says. "Get yourself a box of popcorn."

Heh. This woman understates the hourly drama.

Years ago, I swore I would never ride Greyhound again.

Now, flying coach is worse. Security, lines etc etc

So, I rode it across country last year, and now - its worse. I got my ID's stolen, and I got very little sleep (except for the ride across Montana).

But, I have to admit, it was all interesting.

So, going down the list of the MAJOR bus stations Ive been through - lemme recall ..

The worst. The Chicago station. They moved it from the middle of downtown and dropped it on the outskirts. Its small and perpetually crowded morning, noon and night. To be avoided.
Ironically, the agents behind the desk were cute and quite friendly.

The weirdest. The Fort Lauderdale station. Umm, DEA, immigration and Broward county sherrifs doing a random once over of the New York bound bus.
Before they pulled the bus over, they were wearing, I swear - AT&T Wireless work shirts.
Surreal.
Then again, this IS South Florida. .

The nicest. The Minneapolis station. Also where there were people jumping on the bus trying to steal luggage.

The LA station. Umm.. its like the Chicago station, just as busy, almost as crowded and yet, there is a flavor that is.... *shakes head*
The food was the best of the stations tho.
Its not saying much, but there you are.

New York's Port Authority.. if I werent familiar with it - I would give it some sort of award for being the trippiest. But it seems normal to me now.

The most frontier-like station. Weed, California near Mt Shasta. It IS a general store, like you see in the movies, and the buses have to back into a parking space that is enough for two horse-drawn wagons.

And with all of them, they alternated between being deserted and incredibly busy when the busses pull in.

All kinds of people, all kinds of reasons.

Its not for the faint of heart.

But I met some nice people.

To this day I wont forget
- The grumpy Lawyer with his leg in a cast
- The old couple who had retired and on their way to Seattle for a cruise to Alaska
- The Bus Driver who detoured into the Redwood National Forest for me (and to the delight of the passengers on board who frolicked and took pictures of the behemoths like children.
- The smoke jumper who had just come from figting one of the biggest forest fires in history in Orgeon, and smelled of ..trees and smoke.
- The Sherrif and the prisoner in jumpsuit and shackles at the Northern California store, the sherrif buying chicken wings, the prisoner looking embarrassed and miserable.
- The Irish engineering students caddying for the summer at country clubs and golf courses.
- The (#&$^T$^&# who stole my ID's.
- the rodeo clown and bull rider who gave me his Chris Ledieux CD...

I saw America.

Im gonna do it again.