THE GREYHOUND BUS ADVENTURE USA
Following the costly hiring of a car and driving experience on my first visit to the States after arriving back at Orlando Florida
I ventured into the then, virtually unknown to me, world of the Greyhound Bus. It would take me from the East to West coast for a seven day $100.00 ticket for which I had to produce my British passport to purchase.
Having since travelled many thousands of miles on the ‘ol’ Greyhound I can assure you that there are a number of factors to bear in mind before throwing your car keys away. The first without doubt is who the hell is going to sit next to you? Big mamas with a screaming child on each knee, with intermittent vomiting each time you try to sleep; a psycho lung cancer infested redneck that tells you all his troubles and bums a cigarette from you at every smoke stop. I met a teenage girl from Idaho Falls at the bus station in Boise, who was being transferred from one detention centre to another. After asking for a cigarette, I chatted to her and told her I collected licence plates and did not have one from Idaho. She asked me for a quarter, disappeared round the corner and after only seconds returned with a bicentennial special one. She told stories beyond belief like escaping from the female section of a correction centre to the male quarters, climbing into an inmate’s cell for a quick lovemaking session just for the fun of it with someone she hadn’t even seen before and then returning to her confinement. A solitary confinement colleague who lusted in killing her own new born babies before burning them and a jealous girl who approached her ex-lover’s new partner’s house and as she played the piano shot her dead through plate glass window. A burley, butch prison warden met her at her destination.
An ageing, tanned female who tells you everything you don’t want to know about America and then begs you for $20.00 for her starving nephew in Hartford, Connecticut. Young men wearing brand new sportswear probably missing from a Wal-Mart, whose eyes glare at you the whole journey hoping to hypnotise you into giving them all your belongings. Bearded smelly moon shiners with all their earthly possessions in a holdall that move from one pigsty to another to escape alimony payments.
By contrast a young Amish boy whose parents sit across the gangway giving the occasional glance to check he has not turned into a narcotics dealer. The boy wearing handmade miniature clothing the same as his father but without the beard sat politely looking straight ahead into the back of the seat in front and clutching his small all wooden suitcase on his knee without uttering a single word for the whole journey. There were other exceptions like young well-dressed ladies who thought it a good idea to visit their old aunt in Dover Delaware not realising the additional stresses involved despite the cheap ticket, or students sitting polite and pretty eventually realising their luggage had been sent to Washington State instead of Washington D.C.
The good news is of course that you travel cheaply, normally with a chatty driver pointing out landmarks and telling stories of encounters along the route. The driver is God and will not allow any misbehaving. Late one evening somewhere in Texas the bus stopped. It was the middle of nowhere but suddenly armed police boarded and with a simple hand signal from the driver took hold of an unsuspecting sleepy passenger and forcefully ejected him. As we sped away into the night I caught a glance of him being searched spread eagled against the sheriff’s car. What had he done and how it was communicated we will never know.
So folks please digest my experiences before buying that ticket