Change of Transport

After the first of 4 buses to get from Chicago to Seattle, I thought that things were going alright. Second bus though, mother of pearl! All the stories you've heard are true and all the stereotypes justified. We had a guy wearing a denim suit and cowboy hat, some guy complaining about the person behind kicking their seat, a black woman swearing loudly and taking no shit from anyone especially when it concerns being accused of kicking the seat infront, and a hillbilly who seemed to have never left their own town.....

To set the scene, we had a film playing to try and keep the kids on the bus entertained, and we had this episode causing the bus to be pulled over and stopped...

Black Girl: No! Fuck you! I didn't do fucking nothing!
Other Passenger: Language!!!
Black Girl: He started it.
Guy: You shouldn't be kicking my seat.
Driver: We can sort this out now or you can both get off at the next stop.
Hillbilly Woman: THERE'S SOMETHING WRONG WITH THE SOUND!!!!!!!!
Driver: Sounds alright to me.
Hillbilly Woman: THERE'S SOMETHING WRONG WITH THE SOUND!!!!!!!!!!
Driver: Well, what do you want me to do about it? It sounds alright to me and everyone else so there isn't anything I can do.
Hillbilly Woman: I don't know. If you stand here you'll hear that there's something wrong!

Later in the trip and I couldn't help but overhear a conversation between the hillbilly and her fella...

HB: We're going to see your sister!
Fella: Where does my sister live?
HB: errrr.....
Fella: What's my sister's name?
HB: errrr.... One of them is called.... Susan?
Fella: ....
HB: Sandra?
Fella: I only have one sister.
[There was a little more here that I've either forgotten, unintentionally or not it doesn't matter]
HB: We're going to see your mother?!
Fella: No.
HB: .....
Fella: Why are you hung up on female relatives?
HB: I don't know.
Fella: What's the opposite of female?
HB: errrr..... male. We're going to see your brother.
Fella: And what's his name?
HB: errrr.......
Fella: Jeeeeee.....
HB: errrrr.......
Fella: Jeeeeeeeeeee........
HB: Jack?
Fella: Jeeeeeessssss....
HB: errrrr....... Jessie! Yeah, I just forgot for a moment.

Clearly she wasn't all there, but everything she did was annoying. Shouting/screaming at people to wear 'earplugs' when they were playing music, consistent trips up and down the bus to use the toilet despite having only just got back on the bus after a toilet break, repeating whatever she said at increasing volume until someone responded, no consideration towards others and completely selfish. Did I feel bad for thinking this once I found out that she did actually have a brain injury? Nope, not at all - she was bloody annoying.

Some passengers were a good laugh though. Me favourite was the episode near the beginning of the third bus journey as we were trying to get a DVD working...

Driver: Technical assistant to the front please.
[Several people try and fail.]
Driver: If anyone's got a knife they can bring it up to the front, open up the DVD player and prod a few wires. Something's got to work, right?
Random: This guy wouldn't make a very good airline pilot, that's for sure.
Other Random: How much weed do you think it would take to hot-box this bus?

I believe this is somewhere in East Montana

Comparing the bus and the bike? The bus is most definitely faster. The bus is also comfier (Remember that this is a comparative 'comfier' and not in any way 'comfy'). But the bus sucks for taking photos of random scenes you pass and you're always on the wrong side of the bus. As I've mentioned, some of the people can be less than desirable traveling companions (guess who was either a couple of seats away from me or right infront of me for the majority of the trip?). I didn't even know it was possible while sat upright on a coach, and I swear I didn't mean to, but somehow I ended up spooning the woman in the seat next to me. Whether this is a benefit or disadvantage of the Greyhound is up to you. Sleep is quite a disadvantage on the bus. There's no real opportunity to stop at a comfy motel, find somewhere for dinner and get as much rest as you need in a king-size bed. Nope, I managed to sleep on the second night, but it needs some refinement as I'm sure it involved snoring and it definitely involved drooling over myself and the hapless bastard next to me.

Somewhere in the Rocky Mountains

 Scenery though has been amazing, even through the grease and snot covered windows of the bus. More flat farmland on the first day but woke up on the second to find meself on the plains. I've said before that Oxfordshire is flat. I've then been surprised that Ohio and Indiana are even flatter that Oxfordshire. But North Dakota, wow! Insanely flat! And then when you get into Montana, still flat but there're all these hills and rocky outcrops where you can almost see where the glaciers had been. Then you get to the Rocky Mountains; rows of mountains followed by plains. No idea what the bulk of the mountains were like as it was dark and I was drooling soundly, but what was seen was fairly impressive.

And Freudian slip of the week?

Driver: And on your left you'll see the festival 'Testy Festy' beginning. A lot of fun stuff happens at that place, you'll want to take your beads. Not those beads, oh dear. Well, maybe you do, I've heard things can get pretty wild there.

EDIT:
Oh, I forgot something. At one of the bus stations they had the TV on the fine 'History Channel' - a source of factual programs examining some of the most crucial periods of history you may think. Not at around midnight it's not. Even Channel 5 bases some of it's documentaries on research and fact (even if all their programmes are about the Nazis) but History Channel? The History Channel goes with 'Aliens in History' and a look at how Leonardo Da Vinci met and was influenced by aliens. Da Vinci did mirror writing, so obviously mirroring images are important and if you cut the mirrored image vertically through the face and superimpose it on top of the original you come up with an alien face!!!!! The proof is there people!