Travellogue from the dog.
Mar. 31st, 2003 07:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stormdogFor those with some time to kill, here's the rambling commentary I wrote in my notebook on the trip to Oregon. It's long. Anyone who is actually interested enough to read it, or even parts of it, is welcome to comment.
I suppose it ends kind of inconclusively, as I didn't write anything directly after arriving in Ontario, but it probalby wouldn't have been all that interesting if I had. As it is, it end with a mention of Andrea, and that's just as good as anything else I could put there.
As the bus pulled out of Kenosha, I tried to write poetry for a while. Then I watched scenery for a while, and I think I slept for a while. There was a 4 hour layover in Chicago, then I was off again. At dusk, around 7 or 8 I think, we arrived at Iowa 80, a well-known truck stop I gather, for food. I ate at Arby's and then perused the book selection. I got through the entire first book of Mercedes Lackey's Last Herald Mage series in Chicago and realized I might need more reading material. The only thing that looked vaguely interesting was Freedom's Ransom, the 4th book in a McCaffery series. So far, I haven't been able to get into it, but we'll see what happens when I run out of other reading material.
-----
The first night of the tip has been a series of almost-sleeps interrupted by the bright lights and unwelcome bustle of our various stopping points. I don't have a very clear memory of most of it. For the better part of the night I was turbulently adrift on a sea of dreams, Andrea the wind that moved my ship
We arrived in Omaha (unfortunately I never noticed any cat dancers...) at 12:45 and were told that everyone had to leave the bus and reboard in an hour. I walked briefly around the cramped terminal, watching slapstick comedy of unknown title on a TV so old that the verical hold was failing, poked through a lot of CD's by artists I'd never heard of in the odd combination gift shop/grill, and finally settled on watching a man and (I assume) his son playing an old Dracula pinball table.
Named 'Bram Stoker's Dracula', and proudly subtitled 'Love Never Dies' in letters that the machine occsionally backlit at it's own inscrutable whim, it was, as I told the pair playing, the most interesting thing going on in the terminal. The game was a relatively ordinary table and seemed to be trying to make up for the lackluster play by emitting strange digitized quotes at seemingly random intervals. "I am the last of my kind!" the machine would mourfully howl. IN a way that the game designers may even have intended, that phrase struck me as unexpectedly appropriate. Pinball machines really are a dying breed these days, with all the flashy electronics that are so much less expensive to produce. No electro-mechanics needed, just silicon and circuit boards. I miss the old stuff.
I've been doing so much writing on this trip! I gues something has been inspiring me lately... *looks back toward Michigan*
----
Saturday, apx. 6:30 M.T.
Woke up in Ogallala Nebraska where we stopped for breakfast. A Country Kitchen. Nothing special, but filling. I note that most of the country I've seen so far looks surprisingly similar to home. I suppose that's the nature of the world.
Passed a squat little building with a door labeled 'Omaha Theatre Company' while pulling out of that city last night. Heh, I'm such a theatre junkie. My brain filled in the details of this wonderful little hle in the wall theatre company, a small group of dedicated people taking a little money and a lot of time and turning it into magic. I suppose that's probably an over-idealistic picture, as most mental fancies are, but it's a pleasent one.
Interesing: there's a guy on the bus who's been running for president since 1948 when he was 2 years old. He can beat anybody, he says, even the guy with a billion dollars. He's got more plans than you can count. *shrug* Ok.
---
Stopped again in a tiny little town in Nebraska. I have no idea what time it is, somewhere between breakfast and lunch. There's so much nothing here! Some buildings, fields, ans an old 70's Ford truck are all I can see. I've never really looked at land like this before. Small bumps looking for all the world like ocean waves frozen in time and covered with earth stretched to a horizon further off than I've ever seen it except across a large body of water. It's very windy here. I can almost feel it inside the bus.
---
In transit to Cheyenne
Seeing the distinctive erosion pattern dug into this landscape by wind and rain is very new to me. I love the topography, the rocky ridges overlooking the sunken dry creek runs... It makes me more consciously aware than usual of the way construction disturbs the natural beauty of the land, cutting into hills and filing valleys to better suit the needs of man.
We are riding a few hundred yards from the largest freight train I have ever seen. And now a second is passing in the opposite direction. The first one must be a mile long, easily. Parts of it keep getting lost behing the rolling hills. Wow. I just saw tumbleweed, real tunbleweed, for the first time in my life. We're finally in country that realy feels different from home. Just crossed the Wyoming border. There is a ridge of cliffs of sorts on the left, and great expanses of nothing on the right. It's stark, beautiful, and lonely. I miss my loved ones. I'm thinking of you Andrea.
---
A few miles from Cheyenne
I just saw a sign for Laramie County College. I'd forgotten that Laramie county was in Wyoming. I hadn't realized we'd be going through it. For those who don't know, there was a significant gay rights related event that took place here. Matthew Shepard, an openly gay student at a Laramie university, was beaten, killed, and left tied to a fence in a field because of his sexual orientation. What can be said about such a thing? I don't know. I do know that I had better keep my mouth shut about me, hadn't I? Heh. It's a sad world sometimes. UW Parkside is presenting a staged reading of the Laramie Project this year, a production about the aforementioned events. I intend to go see if if I can.
-----
11:10 M.T.
The terminal in Cheyenne is nicer than the last one in Omaha. Decent seats, and a comprehensible person announcing departures. Wyoming is windy. There are people and cars and buildings all around, yet it seems empty ina way no other place I've been in has. There is a feeling of space here, as though no matter what small cluster of civilization you're in, the open spaces are never far off and do not hesitate to make their presence known.
I find that I really enjoy listening to the woman behind the counter here talk. she has that rural/western accent, and for some reason I really like the sound of it. Maybe it's just due to association with romantic notions like farms and open spaces. I don't know why. I find these things very interesting to ponder, even if I may never figure them out completely.
-
I'm sitting outside the terminal now, in higher wind that I've experienced in a long time. Chicago comes close, but here the occasional peaks are enough to push me back a step. It's a little chilly, yet the parts of me in direct sun are almost uncomfortably warm. I'm outside because I just felt like I wanted to somehow 'get the feel' of the land. I wonder if that makes sense. It really does feel different out here, in a certain intangible way.
Saw a woman here with waist long hair, with two briads starting at her temple and running across the sides of her head and down her back. I actually complimented her, saying I wished I could braid mine like that. Far from being offended, she said she liked my hair too. Also, she tells me that those braids aren't tough, provided you can braid your hair in the first place. Unfortunately, I can't. *grin*
-----
A few miles outside of Laramie now, leaving Medicine Bow National Forest. The scenery if beautiful. Sparse weeds and brush cover rocky hills to our sides that slope downward into snow-filled snake-like depressions that serve as creek beds in warmer times. And the, there are the billboards. 'Microsurgical vasectomy reversal' shouts one set up right after a pass through some rises. *blink blink* Well, that was unexpected. I hate billboards.
Pulled into Laramie just as I was writing that last sentence.We had just enough time for me to poke my head into the gift shop, one of only a dozen or so buildings I can see in the area, and look around. There was some neat Native American sorts of stuff, but what really interested me was the hats. There were some nice black leather hats, some of which almost fit me. I'm glad I noticed this I'd forgotten how much I liked having a good hat to wear, and finding ont that fits me in Wisconsin is next to impossible.
Off we go again. Seeing all the 'Old West show' advertisements makes me wonder if there are any real ghost towns around here. I know there are some out there somewhere. You just have to know where to look. Seeing a real ghost town is somthing I would really like to do someday. It's part of the same quirkiness that interests me in abandoned buildings and urban spelunking.
----
*giggle* Someone a couple seats in front of me has started snoring. At first I thought it was a truck in front of the bus using jake brakes.
And now I'm finally seeing stuff that looks like real mountains. Nifty. It's reminiscent of the time I was in Glacier National Park in Montana. Andrea, you should see that someday. Hidden Lake, Going-to-the-Sun Road, it's awe-inspiring. Remind me to tell you about it some time.
Seems the highways around here aren't economically viable spots for billboards. Good.
----
5:00 M.T.
Spend the better part of an hour in Rock Springs for our dinner stop. McDonald's. Well, it was cheap. I must admit to actually appreciating their dollar menu. After eating, I went outside to look at the western wear store nearby, where I again did not find a hat. I did find a local newspaper which I couldn't pass up bying a copy of. I am the proud owner of a March 29th Daily Rocket-Miner. *giggle* How Asimovian. the news source of choice for asteroid miners, in the belts and beyond! *grin* I'll scan the front title banner in to the computer after I get home.
Our very own politician was the last one on the bus. We all loaded up and waited for him. Finally the bus pulled up to the side of the McDonald's. The presidential candidate still oblivious, the driver had to go in and fetch him. Hm, tells long tengential stories, is oblivious to every day events, can't keep on schedule... I guess he is a politician.
Leaving Rock Springs I saw an exit sign for Flaming Gorge Road. Ohmigod! Your rock striations are so fabulous! Honey, who's your erosionist?
*giggle* But seriously, judging by the beautiful bands of red and orange shooting through the outcroppings near the highway, the name Flaming Gorge in probably quite appropriate. Another sight I wish I could share with my dear raccoon.
------
There is a couple with a digital video camera creating a visual record of their journey. That sort of romantic notion always makes me smile. Noting that they were taking a few minutes of footage of their fellow travellers, I scooped my foxxie Millie out of my backpack and set her on my shoulder. She's very photogenic. *smile* I hope that months and years from now they can enjoy wathcing their video and still get a kick out of the longhaired guy with a fox on his shoulder who spent most of the trip writing in his big blue notebook. I think they filmed me a little as I was writing this. I preteded not to notice. *smile*
Wish I had a watch. The sun is just now starting to descend beneath the horizon. Beyond that, perhaps time doens't really matter anyway. Still, it would be nice to have a time on these writings. Not that it's really bugging me. I'm just showing my infrequent organizational streak again. *grin*
-------
We just left our last stop before Salt Lake City, where I'm switching to another bus for Ontario. Some aspects of the trip have taken me rather by surprise. I've been on this bus for over a day now, and I actually chatted and joked with with a couple of my fellow travellers. I feel just a touch of comaraderie for them; the young girl who's father died ans is heading to California, the older woman who's been crocheting and talking about her sons and their computers and games, the *ahem* large southern gentleman conversing about his dogs, the couple in the seat ahead who look so cute leaning against each other to sleep, the couple using modern technology for a bit of active memory making, and even our resident politician. In an odd, unexpected way, I'll sort of miss them a bit.
You know, I really enjoy this travelling hting. I just wish I wasn't so far from my raccoon.
------
10:45 or so, Salt Lake City
Spent the better part of an hour in the Salt Lake City bus terminal. I met a couple of interesting people. I played with a toddler who's dad was driving up this way until his transmission ate itself. He's a fire-fighter and his parents are part owners of a wolf sanctuary in Oregon. The other owner's daughter is, believe it or not, Steve Irwin's wife. The Crocodile hunter himself. I believe him. He seems like that sort of guy. I also talked briefly with a couple of interesting women, one of whom had really nice hair. When she commented, in response to the royal mess-up going on with trying to load the buses, "Indeed there is no method to their madness." I knew she was worth listening to. *smile*
The fire-fighter told us that he was on a bus where a female passenger was sexually assaulted. That is seriously creepy. How could that happen without anyone noticing? Apparently most everyone was asleep and she was unable or too scared to make noise. He said he wished she had so he and everone else on the bus could have 'beaten the hell out of' the guy who did it. He said she called police later on her cell-phone and they showed up and busted the scumbag... Is this a believable story? Could this happen on a bus or is he just spinning yarns? He seemed pretty reliable... *shudder* That's really creepy.
Two guys tried to buy/sell drugs from me in the terminal too. Don't know which. I must look like a likey sort with the long hair and trenchcoat. *shrug* Happened to my brother and I in a mall once too.
I saw nothing of Salt Lake City except thousands of pinpoints of light on a black field as we entered, and the same old city streets as we drove to the terminal. I never got a good overview of the city. I've always wanted to see the Great Salt Lake too. Guess that'll happen another day.
We're finally pulling out on the last leg of my trip to Ontario. Often I say it'll be nice to sit down. This time it'll be nice to stand up. I've been sitting for the better part of two days, and my butt hurts. My plan is to get to Mike's, call my parents, call Andrea, and relax.
------
6:10 M.T.
In the Boise terminal now, 2 stops from Ontario as I fuzzily remember being told. This is one of the bigger terminals I've seen, though the ticket booth was locked up for the night. I could have filled my water bottle at the first drinking fountain I'd found on the whole trip, but I left it on the bus with my backpack. I finally found some grape juice on sale here. I tried to buy it, but the machine refused my dollar bills. The crane game is also not functional, not that I wanted to use it. Since my brother seems to have an obsession with them, I tend to keep noticing them.
Looking around the Greyhound terminals, I approve of their choce of mascot, even if it is rather corporat for my taste. Also, I like the ads using photogrphed doggys, but the postcard style ads with cartoony, humanish Greyhouns just don't work for me.
The sky has that mystical foggy-blue look of approaching dawn. I hope to be lucky enough to be back on the bus by the time the sun rises in earnest. That would be a beautiful sight to waste by sitting inside a building.
I'm enjoying seeing the route I travelled to get here on the giant wall map. I also realize, looking back toward my origin, just how far away I am from Andrea. *sigh* I miss her a great deal. Maybe now, once I get back home, the distance between us will seem proportionately less. Maybe... 11 days now. I get to see my raccoon in 11 days.
Coming aboard, I realized that I was standing directly behind the woman I had found so interesting before. Though her hair was different, part of the recognition was due to that. Mainly though, I noted that she was holding a large hardcover book. My brain immediately connected her with books, even though I hadn't seen her with one. Heh. I realized shortly after that she was wearing red corduroy pants. I don't even remember if she was wearing them earlier, though I assume so. One would think that an irregular article of clothing like that would be a good way to distinguis someone, but I just didn't notice that because it's not one of my standard means. I love these unexpected looks into my brain, but sometimes it hits me just how odd a brain it is sometimes. *grin*
Pulling out, we passed a billboard advertising local eggs. "Some eggs have to travel cross-country before you can bring them home. Ours don't." Alright! I love supporting local consumption of local produce. But in this case they would have to travel cross-country before I could bring them home... With the buildings, hills, and clouds, I seem to have mostly missed the sunrise. Blah.
------
Just passed two shops in a row leading into Nampa. Dick's Kar Korral and Earl's RV. Wow, that's so... cartoony. Heh. And now the 'Koffee Pot'. Please stop replacing 'c' with 'k' for no good reason people. It's not cutesy, it's just annoying. And what, pray tell, is a 'Chez Burger'? No, better stop that. If I start ranting about stupid signs I will never stop. There's just too much of that here.
We were just passed by a big black Texax semi with a unicorn motif design on it. Looked like a custom job too. I loved it! That's the sort of rig I'd drive if I ever became a trucker. I thought about that briefly, a few years ago. That was when I still thought I was happier being mostly alone. Not anymore.
Another odd note: Whe do people in this part of the country have so many vehicle? The yards are full of them.
We just passed a building that used to have more letters on it than it does now. The remaining few, just above the main door, just say 'LIE'. That's vaguely disturbing. I oughtta use it in a Bureau 13 game sometime, if I evern run it.
-----
Woke from another period of fitful dreaming. Among other visions, somehow Andrea and her friends were waiting for me here. We had a group hug and she kissed my cheek.... *sighhhhh* I miss her.
I suppose it ends kind of inconclusively, as I didn't write anything directly after arriving in Ontario, but it probalby wouldn't have been all that interesting if I had. As it is, it end with a mention of Andrea, and that's just as good as anything else I could put there.
As the bus pulled out of Kenosha, I tried to write poetry for a while. Then I watched scenery for a while, and I think I slept for a while. There was a 4 hour layover in Chicago, then I was off again. At dusk, around 7 or 8 I think, we arrived at Iowa 80, a well-known truck stop I gather, for food. I ate at Arby's and then perused the book selection. I got through the entire first book of Mercedes Lackey's Last Herald Mage series in Chicago and realized I might need more reading material. The only thing that looked vaguely interesting was Freedom's Ransom, the 4th book in a McCaffery series. So far, I haven't been able to get into it, but we'll see what happens when I run out of other reading material.
-----
The first night of the tip has been a series of almost-sleeps interrupted by the bright lights and unwelcome bustle of our various stopping points. I don't have a very clear memory of most of it. For the better part of the night I was turbulently adrift on a sea of dreams, Andrea the wind that moved my ship
We arrived in Omaha (unfortunately I never noticed any cat dancers...) at 12:45 and were told that everyone had to leave the bus and reboard in an hour. I walked briefly around the cramped terminal, watching slapstick comedy of unknown title on a TV so old that the verical hold was failing, poked through a lot of CD's by artists I'd never heard of in the odd combination gift shop/grill, and finally settled on watching a man and (I assume) his son playing an old Dracula pinball table.
Named 'Bram Stoker's Dracula', and proudly subtitled 'Love Never Dies' in letters that the machine occsionally backlit at it's own inscrutable whim, it was, as I told the pair playing, the most interesting thing going on in the terminal. The game was a relatively ordinary table and seemed to be trying to make up for the lackluster play by emitting strange digitized quotes at seemingly random intervals. "I am the last of my kind!" the machine would mourfully howl. IN a way that the game designers may even have intended, that phrase struck me as unexpectedly appropriate. Pinball machines really are a dying breed these days, with all the flashy electronics that are so much less expensive to produce. No electro-mechanics needed, just silicon and circuit boards. I miss the old stuff.
I've been doing so much writing on this trip! I gues something has been inspiring me lately... *looks back toward Michigan*
----
Saturday, apx. 6:30 M.T.
Woke up in Ogallala Nebraska where we stopped for breakfast. A Country Kitchen. Nothing special, but filling. I note that most of the country I've seen so far looks surprisingly similar to home. I suppose that's the nature of the world.
Passed a squat little building with a door labeled 'Omaha Theatre Company' while pulling out of that city last night. Heh, I'm such a theatre junkie. My brain filled in the details of this wonderful little hle in the wall theatre company, a small group of dedicated people taking a little money and a lot of time and turning it into magic. I suppose that's probably an over-idealistic picture, as most mental fancies are, but it's a pleasent one.
Interesing: there's a guy on the bus who's been running for president since 1948 when he was 2 years old. He can beat anybody, he says, even the guy with a billion dollars. He's got more plans than you can count. *shrug* Ok.
---
Stopped again in a tiny little town in Nebraska. I have no idea what time it is, somewhere between breakfast and lunch. There's so much nothing here! Some buildings, fields, ans an old 70's Ford truck are all I can see. I've never really looked at land like this before. Small bumps looking for all the world like ocean waves frozen in time and covered with earth stretched to a horizon further off than I've ever seen it except across a large body of water. It's very windy here. I can almost feel it inside the bus.
---
In transit to Cheyenne
Seeing the distinctive erosion pattern dug into this landscape by wind and rain is very new to me. I love the topography, the rocky ridges overlooking the sunken dry creek runs... It makes me more consciously aware than usual of the way construction disturbs the natural beauty of the land, cutting into hills and filing valleys to better suit the needs of man.
We are riding a few hundred yards from the largest freight train I have ever seen. And now a second is passing in the opposite direction. The first one must be a mile long, easily. Parts of it keep getting lost behing the rolling hills. Wow. I just saw tumbleweed, real tunbleweed, for the first time in my life. We're finally in country that realy feels different from home. Just crossed the Wyoming border. There is a ridge of cliffs of sorts on the left, and great expanses of nothing on the right. It's stark, beautiful, and lonely. I miss my loved ones. I'm thinking of you Andrea.
---
A few miles from Cheyenne
I just saw a sign for Laramie County College. I'd forgotten that Laramie county was in Wyoming. I hadn't realized we'd be going through it. For those who don't know, there was a significant gay rights related event that took place here. Matthew Shepard, an openly gay student at a Laramie university, was beaten, killed, and left tied to a fence in a field because of his sexual orientation. What can be said about such a thing? I don't know. I do know that I had better keep my mouth shut about me, hadn't I? Heh. It's a sad world sometimes. UW Parkside is presenting a staged reading of the Laramie Project this year, a production about the aforementioned events. I intend to go see if if I can.
-----
11:10 M.T.
The terminal in Cheyenne is nicer than the last one in Omaha. Decent seats, and a comprehensible person announcing departures. Wyoming is windy. There are people and cars and buildings all around, yet it seems empty ina way no other place I've been in has. There is a feeling of space here, as though no matter what small cluster of civilization you're in, the open spaces are never far off and do not hesitate to make their presence known.
I find that I really enjoy listening to the woman behind the counter here talk. she has that rural/western accent, and for some reason I really like the sound of it. Maybe it's just due to association with romantic notions like farms and open spaces. I don't know why. I find these things very interesting to ponder, even if I may never figure them out completely.
-
I'm sitting outside the terminal now, in higher wind that I've experienced in a long time. Chicago comes close, but here the occasional peaks are enough to push me back a step. It's a little chilly, yet the parts of me in direct sun are almost uncomfortably warm. I'm outside because I just felt like I wanted to somehow 'get the feel' of the land. I wonder if that makes sense. It really does feel different out here, in a certain intangible way.
Saw a woman here with waist long hair, with two briads starting at her temple and running across the sides of her head and down her back. I actually complimented her, saying I wished I could braid mine like that. Far from being offended, she said she liked my hair too. Also, she tells me that those braids aren't tough, provided you can braid your hair in the first place. Unfortunately, I can't. *grin*
-----
A few miles outside of Laramie now, leaving Medicine Bow National Forest. The scenery if beautiful. Sparse weeds and brush cover rocky hills to our sides that slope downward into snow-filled snake-like depressions that serve as creek beds in warmer times. And the, there are the billboards. 'Microsurgical vasectomy reversal' shouts one set up right after a pass through some rises. *blink blink* Well, that was unexpected. I hate billboards.
Pulled into Laramie just as I was writing that last sentence.We had just enough time for me to poke my head into the gift shop, one of only a dozen or so buildings I can see in the area, and look around. There was some neat Native American sorts of stuff, but what really interested me was the hats. There were some nice black leather hats, some of which almost fit me. I'm glad I noticed this I'd forgotten how much I liked having a good hat to wear, and finding ont that fits me in Wisconsin is next to impossible.
Off we go again. Seeing all the 'Old West show' advertisements makes me wonder if there are any real ghost towns around here. I know there are some out there somewhere. You just have to know where to look. Seeing a real ghost town is somthing I would really like to do someday. It's part of the same quirkiness that interests me in abandoned buildings and urban spelunking.
----
*giggle* Someone a couple seats in front of me has started snoring. At first I thought it was a truck in front of the bus using jake brakes.
And now I'm finally seeing stuff that looks like real mountains. Nifty. It's reminiscent of the time I was in Glacier National Park in Montana. Andrea, you should see that someday. Hidden Lake, Going-to-the-Sun Road, it's awe-inspiring. Remind me to tell you about it some time.
Seems the highways around here aren't economically viable spots for billboards. Good.
----
5:00 M.T.
Spend the better part of an hour in Rock Springs for our dinner stop. McDonald's. Well, it was cheap. I must admit to actually appreciating their dollar menu. After eating, I went outside to look at the western wear store nearby, where I again did not find a hat. I did find a local newspaper which I couldn't pass up bying a copy of. I am the proud owner of a March 29th Daily Rocket-Miner. *giggle* How Asimovian. the news source of choice for asteroid miners, in the belts and beyond! *grin* I'll scan the front title banner in to the computer after I get home.
Our very own politician was the last one on the bus. We all loaded up and waited for him. Finally the bus pulled up to the side of the McDonald's. The presidential candidate still oblivious, the driver had to go in and fetch him. Hm, tells long tengential stories, is oblivious to every day events, can't keep on schedule... I guess he is a politician.
Leaving Rock Springs I saw an exit sign for Flaming Gorge Road. Ohmigod! Your rock striations are so fabulous! Honey, who's your erosionist?
*giggle* But seriously, judging by the beautiful bands of red and orange shooting through the outcroppings near the highway, the name Flaming Gorge in probably quite appropriate. Another sight I wish I could share with my dear raccoon.
------
There is a couple with a digital video camera creating a visual record of their journey. That sort of romantic notion always makes me smile. Noting that they were taking a few minutes of footage of their fellow travellers, I scooped my foxxie Millie out of my backpack and set her on my shoulder. She's very photogenic. *smile* I hope that months and years from now they can enjoy wathcing their video and still get a kick out of the longhaired guy with a fox on his shoulder who spent most of the trip writing in his big blue notebook. I think they filmed me a little as I was writing this. I preteded not to notice. *smile*
Wish I had a watch. The sun is just now starting to descend beneath the horizon. Beyond that, perhaps time doens't really matter anyway. Still, it would be nice to have a time on these writings. Not that it's really bugging me. I'm just showing my infrequent organizational streak again. *grin*
-------
We just left our last stop before Salt Lake City, where I'm switching to another bus for Ontario. Some aspects of the trip have taken me rather by surprise. I've been on this bus for over a day now, and I actually chatted and joked with with a couple of my fellow travellers. I feel just a touch of comaraderie for them; the young girl who's father died ans is heading to California, the older woman who's been crocheting and talking about her sons and their computers and games, the *ahem* large southern gentleman conversing about his dogs, the couple in the seat ahead who look so cute leaning against each other to sleep, the couple using modern technology for a bit of active memory making, and even our resident politician. In an odd, unexpected way, I'll sort of miss them a bit.
You know, I really enjoy this travelling hting. I just wish I wasn't so far from my raccoon.
------
10:45 or so, Salt Lake City
Spent the better part of an hour in the Salt Lake City bus terminal. I met a couple of interesting people. I played with a toddler who's dad was driving up this way until his transmission ate itself. He's a fire-fighter and his parents are part owners of a wolf sanctuary in Oregon. The other owner's daughter is, believe it or not, Steve Irwin's wife. The Crocodile hunter himself. I believe him. He seems like that sort of guy. I also talked briefly with a couple of interesting women, one of whom had really nice hair. When she commented, in response to the royal mess-up going on with trying to load the buses, "Indeed there is no method to their madness." I knew she was worth listening to. *smile*
The fire-fighter told us that he was on a bus where a female passenger was sexually assaulted. That is seriously creepy. How could that happen without anyone noticing? Apparently most everyone was asleep and she was unable or too scared to make noise. He said he wished she had so he and everone else on the bus could have 'beaten the hell out of' the guy who did it. He said she called police later on her cell-phone and they showed up and busted the scumbag... Is this a believable story? Could this happen on a bus or is he just spinning yarns? He seemed pretty reliable... *shudder* That's really creepy.
Two guys tried to buy/sell drugs from me in the terminal too. Don't know which. I must look like a likey sort with the long hair and trenchcoat. *shrug* Happened to my brother and I in a mall once too.
I saw nothing of Salt Lake City except thousands of pinpoints of light on a black field as we entered, and the same old city streets as we drove to the terminal. I never got a good overview of the city. I've always wanted to see the Great Salt Lake too. Guess that'll happen another day.
We're finally pulling out on the last leg of my trip to Ontario. Often I say it'll be nice to sit down. This time it'll be nice to stand up. I've been sitting for the better part of two days, and my butt hurts. My plan is to get to Mike's, call my parents, call Andrea, and relax.
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6:10 M.T.
In the Boise terminal now, 2 stops from Ontario as I fuzzily remember being told. This is one of the bigger terminals I've seen, though the ticket booth was locked up for the night. I could have filled my water bottle at the first drinking fountain I'd found on the whole trip, but I left it on the bus with my backpack. I finally found some grape juice on sale here. I tried to buy it, but the machine refused my dollar bills. The crane game is also not functional, not that I wanted to use it. Since my brother seems to have an obsession with them, I tend to keep noticing them.
Looking around the Greyhound terminals, I approve of their choce of mascot, even if it is rather corporat for my taste. Also, I like the ads using photogrphed doggys, but the postcard style ads with cartoony, humanish Greyhouns just don't work for me.
The sky has that mystical foggy-blue look of approaching dawn. I hope to be lucky enough to be back on the bus by the time the sun rises in earnest. That would be a beautiful sight to waste by sitting inside a building.
I'm enjoying seeing the route I travelled to get here on the giant wall map. I also realize, looking back toward my origin, just how far away I am from Andrea. *sigh* I miss her a great deal. Maybe now, once I get back home, the distance between us will seem proportionately less. Maybe... 11 days now. I get to see my raccoon in 11 days.
Coming aboard, I realized that I was standing directly behind the woman I had found so interesting before. Though her hair was different, part of the recognition was due to that. Mainly though, I noted that she was holding a large hardcover book. My brain immediately connected her with books, even though I hadn't seen her with one. Heh. I realized shortly after that she was wearing red corduroy pants. I don't even remember if she was wearing them earlier, though I assume so. One would think that an irregular article of clothing like that would be a good way to distinguis someone, but I just didn't notice that because it's not one of my standard means. I love these unexpected looks into my brain, but sometimes it hits me just how odd a brain it is sometimes. *grin*
Pulling out, we passed a billboard advertising local eggs. "Some eggs have to travel cross-country before you can bring them home. Ours don't." Alright! I love supporting local consumption of local produce. But in this case they would have to travel cross-country before I could bring them home... With the buildings, hills, and clouds, I seem to have mostly missed the sunrise. Blah.
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Just passed two shops in a row leading into Nampa. Dick's Kar Korral and Earl's RV. Wow, that's so... cartoony. Heh. And now the 'Koffee Pot'. Please stop replacing 'c' with 'k' for no good reason people. It's not cutesy, it's just annoying. And what, pray tell, is a 'Chez Burger'? No, better stop that. If I start ranting about stupid signs I will never stop. There's just too much of that here.
We were just passed by a big black Texax semi with a unicorn motif design on it. Looked like a custom job too. I loved it! That's the sort of rig I'd drive if I ever became a trucker. I thought about that briefly, a few years ago. That was when I still thought I was happier being mostly alone. Not anymore.
Another odd note: Whe do people in this part of the country have so many vehicle? The yards are full of them.
We just passed a building that used to have more letters on it than it does now. The remaining few, just above the main door, just say 'LIE'. That's vaguely disturbing. I oughtta use it in a Bureau 13 game sometime, if I evern run it.
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Woke from another period of fitful dreaming. Among other visions, somehow Andrea and her friends were waiting for me here. We had a group hug and she kissed my cheek.... *sighhhhh* I miss her.
