The Greyhound!

There will still be a post about Turkey with pictures, but all in good time.

Now that I've been home for a few days. Am working on getting myself settled and making my apartment resemble what I left... I figure I'd take some time to tell the story of my Greyhound trip.

First of all... I think Greyhound has a bad reputation. At least on the west coast; but I will also say, it's almost rightfully earned. When I boarded the bus in NYC, it was all normal people just traveling from one place to the other. It's not uncommon to not have a car in parts of the east coast because transportation networks are so well developed. However, after Pennsylvania, the further west we got... the more interesting the passengers got. No matter how weird or sketchy some of the passengers got, the company actually has some pretty strict rules, which are announced regularly on the bus.

I was on the bus for almost 3 full days. I left NYC at 8am on Friday and arrived to Sacramento at about 1am on Monday morning. And for three quarters of the ride, it was an older bus. Which after boarding a new bus in Salt Lake City, it turns out the older bus was much more comfortable. Rather surprising actually. Or it could have just been that after 50 hours on a bus, I just couldn't reach a point of comfort any longer. I was lucky enough to have relatively empty buses where I didn't have to share a seat with anyone except for maybe 12 hours of the trip. And even then, both people I shared a seat with were relatively normal and nice. Despite the fact that I was able to stretch out, there were periods where my butt just HURT!! It was a relief when we had stops, to be able to get out and stretch, but it was never pleasurable to be getting back ON the bus.

As for the people.... One of the people I shared a seat with was an older gentleman traveling from Ohio to LA for a reunion. He did political walks... you know the kind where someone walks across the country to promote awareness of whatever situation. He was very nice, a little odd, and towards the end, very annoying. There were people on the last leg of the trip that I'm pretty sure were snorting drugs in the back of the bus. I saw more "hookups" in a couple days than I expected. It's amazing what can happen on the back of a bus between two people, relatively close in age and of the opposite sex. The thing that baffled me, that I guess just shows you how guys really are, and girls for that matter, the girl or the guy, weren't really good looking. In fact, they were down right nasty looking. So there was one couple with a normal good looking guy and a skanky looking girl and then another couple with a beautiful girl and the guy was down right disgusting looking! To each their own I guess. Then, my favorite and the one that started making me reach my limit... when I got on the bus somewhere in the midwest, I don't remember where exactly... The old mexican cowboy who was sitting right behind me, had a cough that kept being coughed right into the back of my head and which I had to smell.... it smelled like horse butt. It made it hard to sleep because when he would cough, it was with enough force that i could feel it and it actually moved my hair. This might actually explain why I've not been feeling to hot for the last few days. Another favorite was the mexican guy who got on the bus after the bus driver told him it was the wrong bus and then the bus driver discovered him on the bus at a stop several hours later. The said bus driver, was NOT a nice bus driver. \

It was quite the adventure and definitely a fitting way to end the trip in general. I've gone and seen all these other parts of the world, but have never seen the full U.S. This definitely helped eliminate that situation to an extent. I drove through New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Utah, Nevada and finally arrived in California.