This MUST Be What They Meant When They Said, "Adventure"! Another Greyhound Horror Story! Part 1 of 2

Ok, so, I'm posting these next entries in both Obi en and The Greysage Journey.

Well, as all of you know, (because I sent letters and made phone calls to tell everyone, expressing my fear and disappointment, ((thank you all for listening)), ), that I left The Next Evolution, these are the events that followed.

I decided that I was going to go back to the forest for a sabbatical, meditation and for increasing my understanding of primitive living, then I would blog about it. And, I decided, New Mexico would be a good place to start.

I reduced my belongings down from four bags to two. I kept a minimum of clothing, my flutes, my computer (of course), some personal papers, the smallest gifts that I acquired over the years (I must have three pounds of stones {:-{) ), my camping gear, my books and various other items. The backpack and bag were still pretty heavy, "but", I reasoned, "I could walk at whatever pace was comfortable in the forest, I am in no hurry. It wouldn't matter if I only made a half mile a week", once I got to the forest.

So Frank went online and bought me a bus ticket to New Mexico. As he drove me to the Greyhound bus station we talked about the situation. As best as I could tell, we were both hurt, angry and disappointed, but eventually we agreed that my leaving was for the best. And though we were still disappointed by the time we got to the bus station we were both doing OK.

Frank got the tickets but my backpack was more than fifty pounds, so I had to try to reduce it's weight which resulted, with Frank's help, in my having a third bag/ bundle. But we got the backpack to pass so I would check it and carry on two bags. It's all good. The bus was scheduled to leave, I think, at seven in the evening. I had about three hours to wait. Frank gave me some money for expenses. This was the first evening.

My route would take me from Pittsburgh through Indianapolis, St. Louis, Denver to Grand Junction Colorado where I would turn south to go through Durango and disembark in Cortez, where I would walk into the forest. There, I would ponder on things, eat wild plants, run through the trees playing with the deer and feed and pet the furry little chipmunks as they sat in the palm of my hand and I nuzzled their little noses. And by the end of the month I will have resolved all my own issues and will have come up with viable solutions for most of the worlds problems. Simple!

Well, there were so many people heading in the same direction that we ended up having to take two buses. I don't like standing around so I sat and waited until the line was almost gone before I got in. The first bus was packed to capacity then those of us who were left boarded another bus that was less than half full. Brilliant! I was able to stretch out over two tightly packed seats. It was great. We were only twenty minutes late into Indianapolis.

In Indianapolis our driver refused to drive anymore, he said he'd been on too many hours all ready, then left. The staff in Indianapolis didn't seem know that two buses were coming from Pittsburgh and seemed to be panicking to figure out what to do. One bus was loaded and left and, again I was at the end of the line, so we waited for over an hour before we got another bus and driver. Some passengers were upset, but I was quite calm, after all, I had no schedule to keep. I spent the time pacing and meditating. I think it was about midnight when we left Indianapolis. Let me just say here that I'm terrible at keeping track of time, so I won't be accurate at time keeping, but the core of the story is there. That morning and evening were the first day.

Anyway, we drove and drove, and every stop that wasn't at a bus station was at a McDonalds. Here I discovered that Greyhound has an agreement with McDonalds. Greyhound brings McDonalds fifty or sixty imprisoned passengers, several times a day and night, to stores all over the country. When you ride Greyhound, you must either eat exorbitantly priced junk food from a vending machine or buy exorbitantly priced junk food from McDonalds. Unless you bring your own of course, or fast.

So, anyway, we arrived in St Louis way up in the night, like two or three in the morning. We looked like a bunch of survivors from the Titanic. We were gaunt and hollow eyed, some of us were shivering, some were screaming in pain and frustration because we missed our connecting buses and would have to wait for another day for the next bus. My head was thick and confused from lack of sleep and subsisting on chemically laden garbage for two days. As I was heading into the station one of the passengers that had gotten his luggage and gone to the ticket counter yelled out that the next bus for Kansas City was six hours away at gate ten, so we all followed him and sat down. No one said anything for a long time. Then, after awhile, species recognition began to kick in and we began to occasionally glance at one another, that evolved into grunts and mumbles, and eventually into words, then sentences, then conversations. And the St Louis smog began to glow a dull reddish-orange as a new dawn broke. And that morning and evening were the second day.

A couple hours later, one of my bus-ty companions, came and showed me that he had gotten a food coupon from the lady at the ticket counter who redid his schedule. I asked him to watch my bags and I streaked off to the counter to get my food coupon, the lady was gone, a hand written sign said, "back in 15 mins".

I went back in forty five minutes, but there was a long line, so I waited another hour then got to see her. I told her what bus I had come in on and showed her my ticket. She began punching buttons on a computer, her fingers seem to race in all directions and as she punched buttons she talked, "I thought I already did all these! You were supposed to bring this to me when you came in! How come you didn't bring this to me? I thought I was finished with these. There won't be another bus for Denver until tomorrow but I can reroute you through Oklahoma City if you want. There is a six hour layover in Grand Junction, Colorado or a ten hour layover in Albuquerque. Which way do you want to go?"

After about two minutes I started and jumped, I realized she was waiting for input. "Huuhhm", I said, "I'd have to stay here until tomorrow if I went through Denver?"

The lady gave an exasperated sigh, "Yes!", she said.

"Uuhhm, OK," I said, feeling like I was in the early stages of recovery from some brain injury, "I'll go through Oklahoma City".

She punched a bunch more buttons, printed out a ticket, wrote me out a meal voucher for eight dollars and said, "Ok, you'll be going through Oklahoma City, Amarillo and Albuquerque, then to Cortez.You'll be responsible for making sure your luggage is transferred from one bus to the next. And next time bring your ticket to the counter as soon as you come in and don't wait around", she said all this again, very fast.

"Shouldn't we change the label on my bag, too?" I asked.

"You won't need it," she said, "it won't make any difference".

I walked back to gate ten where my backpack and bags were, my new gate was gate four. There was a guy sweeping the floor, when I bent down to pick up my bags I saw a little plastic pearl from some child's broken pearl necklace. I picked it up and dropped it in one of the pockets of my backpack.

I moved everything to gate four. Eight hours later I was on a bus going through Springfield, Missouri to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma then through Amarillo, Texas to Albuquerque, New Mexico. The ride took two more days to get to Albuquerque.

I saw my bag in the hold in Oklahoma City. In Amarillo, they wouldn't let us on the tarmac where they were transferring bags around, so I never got to see where my bag was in Amarillo. I realized that we would be going through Tucumcari, which is then a straight shot to Taos and the mountains, via hitchhiking. So I told the bus driver that I wanted disembark in Tucumcari.

In Tucumcari, we stopped at a truck stop. The driver opened the luggage bay doors, we looked through all the bags, my pack was not there. I was crest fallen. The driver said the bags would probably go to Albuquerque. So, I went to Albuquerque.

We arrived in Albuquerque, I think, at around eleven a m, my connecting bus wasn't due until one thirty a m the next morning. During the next fourteen hours I called every number I could find to call, I talked to every official that I could find to talk to, (using up most of the cash I had left), everyone said the same thing, "Your pack is in Amarillo and there is nothing we can do about it".

"How do you know it's in Amarillo?"

"Because it's always Amarillo and nobody cares. You can file a report but it probably won't do any good. You should go on to Cortez and wait for your pack to come, it probably won't take more than four weeks, or six at the most."

"But I don't have any place to live, my house was on the backpack and I don't have any money left."

Every driver and every attendant and every person I talked to on the phone said the same thing, "There is nothing we can do, we are not allowed to call around and the company, (presumably Greyhound) doesn't care."

I called the number for baggage tracking, they told me that they sent out a notice to all stations that if they find the bag with that tracking number to let us know. No one has ever called.

The next morning I went on to Cortez. We pulled into the lot of a gas station at about nine a m. The bus pulled away and left me standing there with one bag full of dirty socks, shorts, tee shirts and two bath towels and the other bag had my netbook, some personal papers and some odds and ends. I had no tent, no bed roll, no place to go and not enough money to even rent a room for the night.

I thought of what might be the best use of what money I had left. After much deliberation I walked to Walmart and bought a prepaid cell phone and two days worth of granola bars. Then I walked, carrying my two bags, to the visitors center to look at maps and get more information. As I walked I, again, called every number I could find for Greyhound. It made absolutely no difference. Everyone said the same thing, fill out a report and you might get your bag back sometime.

I found a great book on local plants and their uses at the visitors center, I bought it, I figured it would make it easier to find food if I had to go into the mountains without anything. I went and did my laundry and that pretty much took care of my funds.Blister were already growing on my feet.

After walking around town and learning where things were for most of the day, I sat on a curb in the gas station parking lot to wait on the bus from Grand Junction, hoping that my bag would be on it. When I looked to my right I saw another plastic pearl just beside the curb. I looked at it for a moment then I picked it up and stuck it in my pocket.

The last bus arrived about nine thirty at night, no bag, so I gathered up the two bags I had and on blistered and bleeding feet, began walking down the highway, into the desert looking for a safe place to sleep.

...to be continued.