If Everything Goes Right, Then Everything Has Gone Wrong

Austin TX

The advice I've been given before is that taking the Greyhound in the North of the US is not so bad, but then in the South it gets horrific. We stopped in the most desolate God-forsaken place in New Mexico, at a combination of laundrette, post office and general store with no sign of the town these services were supplying. The shop was barren and had even less items of nutritional value leading to the beginning of 26 hour's eating of a Mars bar, a pack of Skittles, and a pack of M&Ms. Putting up signs to not put paper towels down the toilet is a good incentive, but needs some work as some people don't understand the difference between paper towels and toilet paper creating a smell wafting from the bin of which the Golgothan shit demon would be proud. Back on the bus, a family had got on having been rejected from an earlier bus due to some dispute about the age of their child or something. The T-Shirt with the cheesy picture of a wolf and fat guy with a Swastika tattooed on his chest pointed to only one thing - rednecks.

After arriving in Austin and meeting me CouchSurfing host it was back onto a bike for the Thursday Night Social Ride; about 100 cyclists cycling around the city in the dark, trying to avoid parked cars, moving cars, street furniture and, more difficultly, each other.

Many people say that Austin is the only good part of Texas and with it being a university town, it's a bit of a party town. Did nothing Friday afternoon (I'm blaming the timezone change as well as the previous night's drinking) but then went out again for the evening. Met a load of Ray's friends and had a few drinks and then went to another bar to experience a bit more of Austin. We went to some bar that's notorious as an easy place to pick up women. Even I had me arse slapped walking through the place and we were only in there for 2 minutes. Straight out of that place and headed next door where there was some live Country music happening - amazing when you're drunk.

In the supermarket attempting to get food, me credit card was declined. Not the end of the world, probably Halifax being a pain in the arse again. Logged into me account and there was no connection to the account: credit N/A, available balance £0, no recent transactions. Weird, but seems as though the system is temporarily down. After a night of drinking logged back on to find that things are back up and normal, except me card's been cleared out to tune of £2000. Card cancelled, I'm now on cash or having a £1.50 charge for each and every transaction.

The weather has continued to be ridiculously hot, but we have had some rain at last. There was a bit of a storm in Flagstaff with it being monsoon season and then we've had a couple in Austin. Still hot and humid, but at least it's a change.

Another One Rides The Bus

Hours without a proper meal: 28 hours.

Those aren't clouds, that's the gunk on the window ruining the view of California

Seattle done, and another 24 hours or so on the Greyhounds. This trip wasn't so bad, although things began with a completely rammed bus sitting next to some hippie who hadn't had a shower for at least 3 days. How did I know this? He told me. Couldn't smell anything over the stench of garlic I think he'd rubbed into his clothes to hide his own smell.

The buses are supposed to stop every couple of hours for a break, but our driver didn't seem to know about this tradition and carried on like a machine for 5 hours straight not letting off the bus for more than 4 minutes and the quickest cigarette smoking ever. Fortunately I think I've cracked the art of sleeping on a bus and was rewarded again with a chin covered in drool. I'm hoping it was mine, but it could quite have easily belonged to the middle aged Hispanic guy I discovered snoring softly on my shoulder at half 5 this morning. Slightly ruined the sunrise over the mountains.

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!