The Long Ride Home

I left Millinocket at 9:00 AM on Monday morning. I was expecting a long bus ride home. Its almost 4:00 AM on Tuesday morning, and I have no idea when I will be home. I had a good book, and thought the ride would be a good transition to the "real world". My long bus ride is getting longer than expected.

I did not anticipate NYC. I had to change buses for the third time at the NYC Port Authority. The first thing I noticed was that the NYC culture is as opposite to trail culture as you can get. NYC people seem to have an aggressive, loud, self centered attitude. I watched the bus driver yell at several passengers who did not understand her poorly comunicated directions.

On the trail, people we generally friendly and helpful. You were definitely on your own, but people would likely help you if they could and you were not being stupid about something. At worst, people would just ignore you.

I also noticed the segregation of knowledge at the Port Authority. I suppose thiis could happen anywhere, but it seems to happen most often in big cities or government offices.

At the Port Authoriity, only wokers with dark shirts were directing passangers. If you had a question about why your bus was 3 hours late or why you had to keep lining up at different gates or how and when you were going to get home, well, those questions were for supervisors in white shirts. Supervisors did not mix with passengers, and they did not answer questions asked by workers in dark shirts.

I finally managed to get on a bus to Pittsburgh. I have no idea when the bus arrives in Pittsburgh or when I can get a bus to Cleveland. Those are all questions for supervisors in white shirts. Unfortunately, there are no supervisors in white shirts on this bus.

With bus travel so much more fuel efficient than air travel, its too bad a company can not make the system run more efficiently than the Greyhound. It would not be a bad experience otherwise.

I met a guy with a mohawk who likes to pound nails into his nose. He says everyone can do it. I also met a really aggressive 18 year old magazine sales person while standing in line. He says he makes $90,000 a year selling magazines door to door in Cambden, NJ. It seems like there are a lot of college students riding buses too.