I've seen some things from the window of a Greyhound bus. I watched the night chase away the colours of a brilliant sunset in the desert of Nevada, then that same sun rise again over the mountains of Colorado, still snow laden in the springtime. My bus racked up mile after mile across the wide open plains of Wyoming, and trundled down abandoned back road streets of towns in Texas with names like Cactus and Amarillo. I found a vegan smoothie café in Rock Springs, Wyoming, opposite the McDonalds which was our intended lunch stop, tried the bus station coffee more than once (desperate times), listened to a truly delightful amount of country pop music through my phone's radio- and that's to say nothing of the people I met along the way.
Four sunsets, three sunrises, two overnight stays in Greyhound stations, one blissful hour watching two hawks glide thermals in tandem over the great expanse of nothingness in Colorado, and I had made my way from Reno, Nevada, to New Orleans, Louisiana. Along the way I had the mechanics of assembling/disassembling an assault rifle painstakingly explained to me, was told tales of a tame black widow spider that foiled a potential robbery by biting all five robbers on the ankles, was totally unable to contribute to a conversation about preferred varieties of marijuana (but nodded along all the same), shared a seat with a bona-fide cowboy (hat and belt and boots and all) who called me ma'am and explained all about chasing raccoons out of the calf pen with a 22.
My first night in the Greyhound station was at Salt Lake City, Utah. A beautiful city ringed by sharp mountains with snow that glowed in the greyscale night light as I pulled in at 2am. My connecting bus to Denver, Colorado, was scheduled out again at 7:30am, so I pulled my hat over my head and napped against my bag. Of course 7:30am rolled around, and then 8:30am, and then 10:30am, and my travel mates had all bonded over the extreme frustration that a delayed bus brings, especially when our bus was patiently waiting outside the loading door (and had been since 7am). What we lacked, evidently, was a driver. One was eventually procured but he was pronounced drunk and a further replacement called for. This bus was the express bus for Denver, which means that almost everyone was in the same position as me of catching a connection out of Denver pretty soon after arrival. We watched and waited helplessly as it became obvious none of us would make our connections that evening, passing the time playing cards, bemoaning the system, trialling bus station coffee and napping in the queue we'd formed so optimistically at 7am. Eventually the bus pulled away around midday, by which time I'd heard all about who really killed JFK, the dangers of working as a roofer, and (multiple times) the solemn vow to never, ever, take Greyhound again.
As we tracked along the bottom of Wyoming I was absorbed by the beauty of the open space and the isolation. I spent many hours daydreaming myself into a ranching life on these desert hills, with but my horse and dog for company. And also with my massive ute (in the US utes are called trucks, which I feel is justified as these vehicles are true beasts and dwarf our working vehicles at home). We soon crossed the border into Colorado, with scenery more or less unchanged but occasional mountain ranges lacing the horizon. A McDonalds stop prompted a bonding session between my seatmate and two young guys a few seats behind me on the bus, who looked about 19 and were dressed for a hipster day out in Melbourne (one still had a retainer), when one of these lads announced to the bus as a whole, 'Wow, McDonalds feels like such a buffet after jail... the dollar menu never tasted so good!' My seatmate embarked on a detailed description of the food in female prison, and after they all realised they'd just gotten out a few days ago and all been in on drug charges a true friendship was born (this was about the time I started nodding along). She went to sit back with them and bond further, and at the next stop my cowboy sat down, with 'excuse me ma'am, would you mind if I sat here?' and a tip of his hat.
The drama that began with the delay was not yet over- at the afternoon truckstop stop one of the young African American guys travelling on board was kicked off the bus after supposedly looking like he was going to steal something (?!) and then sitting on the bonnet of someone's car. The entire bus was up in arms, the police were called, phone cameras were filming and I just sat very quietly in my seat. From my very quiet sitting position the whole situation seemed vastly unfair, but it also looked like the bus driver was bound by protocol from the moment the clerk at the store made a complaint. The bus was unsettled, we were four hours late, and then when we finally arrived in Denver the bus door wouldn't open. At this point we were all spending the night in the station anyway, so I was more amused than anything else, but the disquiet of earlier in the afternoon quickly escalated into a riot. Some guy had his gun out, people were shouting and swearing and one guy was having trouble breathing, the emergency windows were popped and a heap of people climbed out of the bus while the driver just kept throwing his body weight at the stubborn door. The cowboy tried to calm people down but in the end just wearily sat back down with me, while someone else was yelling for 'someone to bring the goddamn jaws of life.'
Once we were free of the bus and re-ticketed for our ongoing journeys, the 'support group from the bus journey from hell' (so called by the same guy who had been telling me all about who killed JFK) found a corner and holed up for the evening. I rolled out my hiking mat and properly went to sleep! At one point one of the guys woke me up to go and collect my meal voucher (Greyhound's apology for the inconvenience) and as I lay back down said to me, 'you're safer than at your Grandma's house here, we're all looking out for ya.'
I slept like a log.
The morning brought Denver to Dallas, and the Texan utes (even bigger than the Wyoming ones), the huge Southern churches (lots of them look like mansions, these huge sprawling estates), the warmth and sunshine. I wandered the bustling downtown Dallas streets and the ghost town backroads of Amarillo, then it was back on the bus to watch the transformation into gator territory- the swamps of Louisiana. Everything became much more green and wet, as we traversed serious swamp land through Baton Rouge (where I was told by a New Orleans native 'not to be so friendly in Louisiana, it's different down here') and started seeing signs for all sorts of food that I had never heard of before (gumbo? crawfish? po-boys?). As my fourth sunset faded to night we arrived into New Orleans, and I was swept up by Alison (a wonderful woman I met climbing in NZ), into the music, the humidity, the liberal paradise that is NOLA.
The tales of this city will keep for another day.
Until then,
Lucy.
Four sunsets, three sunrises, two overnight stays in Greyhound stations, one blissful hour watching two hawks glide thermals in tandem over the great expanse of nothingness in Colorado, and I had made my way from Reno, Nevada, to New Orleans, Louisiana. Along the way I had the mechanics of assembling/disassembling an assault rifle painstakingly explained to me, was told tales of a tame black widow spider that foiled a potential robbery by biting all five robbers on the ankles, was totally unable to contribute to a conversation about preferred varieties of marijuana (but nodded along all the same), shared a seat with a bona-fide cowboy (hat and belt and boots and all) who called me ma'am and explained all about chasing raccoons out of the calf pen with a 22.
My first night in the Greyhound station was at Salt Lake City, Utah. A beautiful city ringed by sharp mountains with snow that glowed in the greyscale night light as I pulled in at 2am. My connecting bus to Denver, Colorado, was scheduled out again at 7:30am, so I pulled my hat over my head and napped against my bag. Of course 7:30am rolled around, and then 8:30am, and then 10:30am, and my travel mates had all bonded over the extreme frustration that a delayed bus brings, especially when our bus was patiently waiting outside the loading door (and had been since 7am). What we lacked, evidently, was a driver. One was eventually procured but he was pronounced drunk and a further replacement called for. This bus was the express bus for Denver, which means that almost everyone was in the same position as me of catching a connection out of Denver pretty soon after arrival. We watched and waited helplessly as it became obvious none of us would make our connections that evening, passing the time playing cards, bemoaning the system, trialling bus station coffee and napping in the queue we'd formed so optimistically at 7am. Eventually the bus pulled away around midday, by which time I'd heard all about who really killed JFK, the dangers of working as a roofer, and (multiple times) the solemn vow to never, ever, take Greyhound again.
As we tracked along the bottom of Wyoming I was absorbed by the beauty of the open space and the isolation. I spent many hours daydreaming myself into a ranching life on these desert hills, with but my horse and dog for company. And also with my massive ute (in the US utes are called trucks, which I feel is justified as these vehicles are true beasts and dwarf our working vehicles at home). We soon crossed the border into Colorado, with scenery more or less unchanged but occasional mountain ranges lacing the horizon. A McDonalds stop prompted a bonding session between my seatmate and two young guys a few seats behind me on the bus, who looked about 19 and were dressed for a hipster day out in Melbourne (one still had a retainer), when one of these lads announced to the bus as a whole, 'Wow, McDonalds feels like such a buffet after jail... the dollar menu never tasted so good!' My seatmate embarked on a detailed description of the food in female prison, and after they all realised they'd just gotten out a few days ago and all been in on drug charges a true friendship was born (this was about the time I started nodding along). She went to sit back with them and bond further, and at the next stop my cowboy sat down, with 'excuse me ma'am, would you mind if I sat here?' and a tip of his hat.
The drama that began with the delay was not yet over- at the afternoon truckstop stop one of the young African American guys travelling on board was kicked off the bus after supposedly looking like he was going to steal something (?!) and then sitting on the bonnet of someone's car. The entire bus was up in arms, the police were called, phone cameras were filming and I just sat very quietly in my seat. From my very quiet sitting position the whole situation seemed vastly unfair, but it also looked like the bus driver was bound by protocol from the moment the clerk at the store made a complaint. The bus was unsettled, we were four hours late, and then when we finally arrived in Denver the bus door wouldn't open. At this point we were all spending the night in the station anyway, so I was more amused than anything else, but the disquiet of earlier in the afternoon quickly escalated into a riot. Some guy had his gun out, people were shouting and swearing and one guy was having trouble breathing, the emergency windows were popped and a heap of people climbed out of the bus while the driver just kept throwing his body weight at the stubborn door. The cowboy tried to calm people down but in the end just wearily sat back down with me, while someone else was yelling for 'someone to bring the goddamn jaws of life.'
Once we were free of the bus and re-ticketed for our ongoing journeys, the 'support group from the bus journey from hell' (so called by the same guy who had been telling me all about who killed JFK) found a corner and holed up for the evening. I rolled out my hiking mat and properly went to sleep! At one point one of the guys woke me up to go and collect my meal voucher (Greyhound's apology for the inconvenience) and as I lay back down said to me, 'you're safer than at your Grandma's house here, we're all looking out for ya.'
I slept like a log.
The morning brought Denver to Dallas, and the Texan utes (even bigger than the Wyoming ones), the huge Southern churches (lots of them look like mansions, these huge sprawling estates), the warmth and sunshine. I wandered the bustling downtown Dallas streets and the ghost town backroads of Amarillo, then it was back on the bus to watch the transformation into gator territory- the swamps of Louisiana. Everything became much more green and wet, as we traversed serious swamp land through Baton Rouge (where I was told by a New Orleans native 'not to be so friendly in Louisiana, it's different down here') and started seeing signs for all sorts of food that I had never heard of before (gumbo? crawfish? po-boys?). As my fourth sunset faded to night we arrived into New Orleans, and I was swept up by Alison (a wonderful woman I met climbing in NZ), into the music, the humidity, the liberal paradise that is NOLA.
The tales of this city will keep for another day.
Until then,
Lucy.
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