The Bad Bus Trip -- Day One -- Part Three -- Bummin' in Barstow

My happiness upon arriving in Barstow was short-lived. We pulled into the bus station at 5:05 p.m. -- 5 minutes after the snack bar/gift shop closed. My well-laid-out plan of spending part of the 2-hour and 45-minute layover there eating dinner was scrubbed. But the Sun Chips were good. They would have been much better if there had been water in the vending machines to wash them down with. I'd only been gone for 3 hours and I already had to dip into my emergency water reserve that was supposed to last 2 1/2 days.

The good thing about Barstow was that Terrorist Freak Boy and I parted company there.

I don't really remember how I killed time until 7:30. I just know I couldn't spend a lot of time outside because it was about 110 degrees. I couldn't spend a lot of time inside because of the loud, obnoxious, uncontrollable 2-year-old who was running amok. I pretty much split my time between inside and outside. I wished I still smoked. I briefly contemplated getting a half-smoked cigarette out of the ashtray near the door of the terminal. If I thought no one would catch me doing it, I probably would have.

At 7:30 I took my bag outside to wait for my bus, which was scheduled to arrive at 7:50. I'd had about enough of the 2-year-old as I could handle. Because all the bus station employees leave at 6 p.m., at 8 p.m. I asked the Pinkerton Security guard if he knew anything about the 7:50 bus. "It's always late," he said, "except when it doesn't show up. That happens sometimes." Great.

At about the time I learned that I would most likely be in Barstow until 11:15, when the next bus to Vegas got there, a bus leaving for Los Angeles pulled away. It's a mystery to me as to how the bus driver and the other passengers on the bus failed to notice the elderly couple running behind the bus, waving their arms and shouting. I felt bad for them. They didn't speak English and neither I nor the security guard speak Spanish. Eventually, the security guard found someone via walkie-talkie who could explain to them that they were stuck there 'til 4:30 a.m.

And I thought I had it bad. At least my Barstow experience ended at about 11:30 p.m. Next stop -- Vegas, baby.

The Bad Bus Trip -- Day One -- Part Two -- Speaking of Terrorists ...

I'm pretty sure I sat next to a terrorist-in-the-making from Bakersfield to Barstow. His name is Kevin. He's from Missouri. I know his last name and what city he's from, but I'm afraid of a slander suit so I won't print that. However, I'm begging any high school guidance counselors from Missouri to watch for warning signs from any Kevins you may talk to.

Kevin's hero is his brother's best friend -- a white supremesist (sp?) who sports a Hitler mustache. Kevin hates California. Why? Mexicans. "California's full of Mexicans," he said. "How can you like a state that has so many Mexicans? Ship them all back to Mexico. They're worthless pieces of shit. All of them." Of course I should have told him that one of my best friends is half Mexican, but I was afraid. As if the fact that this teen-ager has such a deep hatred for an entire ethnic group wasn't enough to be frightened of, the racial make-up of the 50-passenger bus was 6 Caucassians, 7 African-Americans, 5 Asians, 2 Indians and 30 Mexicans. I was afraid Kevin was going to start a race war.

I tried ignoring the little freak, but every time I turned my head he nudged or tapped my arm to make sure I was paying attention. Thank God for the McDonald's in Mojave. When the bus made a stop, Freak Boy got out to smoke a cigarette. I took the opportunity to get out my WalkMan. I didn't even have it turned on, but the headphones on my ears kept him from talking to me. Instead of listening to him or the WalkMan I kept thinking up future headlines like "Teen gunman targets Taco Bell."

I never thought I'd be so happy to arrive in Barstow.

The Bad Bus Trip -- Day One -- Part One -- Homeland Insecurity

I walked up to the ticket counter in Bakersfield and asked for a one-way ticket to Bradford, Pa. The girl asked for my name and phone number but didn't ask for a driver's license or any other kind of ID. When they "checked" my bag, all they did was put a tag on it to show when I'd have to pick it up for transfers (which ended up being a f'ing joke). No one even asked to look at, let alone inside, my backpack.

While we were waiting for the bus to arrive, a man sitting near us got up and went outside the bus station, but left his bag on the floor. No one seemed to notice besides us. He eventually came back but, let me tell you, we were more than a little nervous about that.

I'd like to say security was better during the next three days, but I'm sad to say I can't. Cleveland was the best and it wasn't all that hot. What happened in Vegas made me even more leary than if they'd done nothing. But more on that later.

I guess what I learned is that Greyhound doesn't think terrorists ride buses.

I could post every day about how much I miss Nick, but I'm sure all (8) of you -- even Nick -- would get pretty sick of reading that. So, to save you all the boredom --- I miss Nick x 30 (or however many more days we're going to be apart.

I could also post updates on my mom, but you'd probably get bored with that as well. So I'll just post if there's anything earth-shattering. For now, all is well.

So, what am I going to post about? The bus trip from hell. I must blog about it to purge it from my system before it eats me up inside and I'm afraid to get on the bus to go home. If only I could count on Amtrak. That'd be the way to go. It was fairly cool last time. I deal better with being a few hours late as opposed to an entire day.

Using WebTV to blog sucks.

That is all.

I thought the label on the bottle of darvocet said every 4 hours, but it really said every 6 hours. That explains a lot.

I really believe that people over 40 are not meant to travel cross-country on a bus. I think I aged 6 years in those 4 days. And, yes, it was only supposed to be 2+ days on the bus. I'll explain sometime. Let me just start out by saying it was hell. Pure hell. Ya know, maybe being over 40 has nothing to do with it. Maybe it's just traveling cross-country on a bus that sucks. Actually, traveling cross-country sucks. Period. I wish there was an easy, cheap way to get from California to Pennsylvania and back. When you were a kid did you ever wish you were Jeannie or Samantha so you could blink or twitch your nose and get what you want? Well, that's what I want now.

I'm going to be gone for a while. I'm not really sure how long though. My mom is in the hospital and, seeing as my brother who lives in Boston and my sister who lives near Cleveland can't seem to free up their schedules to go help her, I'm going to make the 2-day+16-hour bus trip from Bakersfield to Pennsylvania to make sure she's ok. I was going to go in 3 weeks anyway and stay for a couple weeks. But now, who knows how long I'll be there? Talking to Mom on the phone doesn't really tell me anything. One minute she sounds ok, the next minute she's so out of breath she can barely talk. I'm hoping the doctor knows something by later today so my imagination isn't running wild during the bus trip.

Why am I taking the bus? I'm a chicken! I don't want to be anywhere near LAX. I hate flying in the first place and LAX just scares the crap outta me right now.

Why may I not be blogging for a while? Mom has WebTV. Although she calls it her computer (She's 74 so it's cute, don't you think?) it doesn't quite cut it. Know what I mean? Also, as far as I know, you can post to Blogger using WebTV, but can't publish. Maybe Nick will be nice and get in here and publish for me. *s*

Note to Nick: I'm sorry about the Joey Bear obsession.

Anyway, This is our ninth full day of being non-smokers and it hasn't been easy. Yesterday when I found out Mom was in the hospital was the worst day of all. But I made it. Yay me!

Note to Steve: If you happen to read this, see ya in BFD? I'll email you with the new WebTV addy I'm going to create.

Well, I guess that's it for now. Don't forget me while I'm gone, ok?

Well, Nick and I finally did it. We quit smoking. Cutting down just wasn't working. We did go from 2 1/2 to 3 packs a day (I can't believe I smoked that much!!) down to 10 cigarettes a day, but that just wasn't good enough. We got sick of the smell, the cost, the way it made us feel, the time we wasted (especially since we vowed to not smoke in the new house), everything about it. Eventually, we just got sick of smoking all together. There wasn't even one thing we liked about it. We realized we couldn't do it without help (at least we couldn't before, so why set ourselves up for failure again) so a couple weeks ago we decided we'd buy one more carton and when it was gone, the next day we'd start the patch. So, as of the time I'm typing this, we've been smoke-free for 2 days, 2 hours, 58 minutes and 10 seconds, and we've saved $8.40. Yay us!