Bus Trip From Hell

Friday, September 11 at 7am I left Austin, TX via Greyhound, headed for Bloomington, IN. It was a grueling bus ride with several layovers and quite a few eye-opening interactions with some interesting folks. I left Texas with a disjointed feeling of not knowing why I was so hell bent on traveling to SE Asia and wondering if the choices I had made in the past year were the right ones. One year ago I left what most of my friends are currently struggling to find. A good job that payed fairly decent, I never had to worry about putting food in my mouth or a roof over my head. A really good guy that I had established a 9.5 year relationship with. Four amazing “kids”, two cats and two dogs, that are some of the best pets a person could ask for. The problem was that individual components of my life made me happy, but the sum total did not and I felt like I had no clue who I was or what I wanted out of life.

As I rode out of Austin I was feeling quite lost and wondering just how screwed up I had made my life. Then I met Debbie in Louisville, the recovering meth addict whose daughter is in jail for dealing, and whose son is with her abusive ex-husband. Jose in Memphis, who has been traveling all over the states for the past 11 years following the harvest season and trying to make enough money to feed himself and send some home to his family. The 5 random guys I was woken up from a nap by them talking about their jail time, various drugs they love and how messed up their lives are and they can't understand why. The fellow at the Indianapolis terminal that was headed to Mexico so he could avoid being arrested and dying in jail from Hepatitis. Listening to their stories has had an interesting affect on me. I realiz how amazing my life has been so far, and how amazing it will continue to be. I may not know what the hell I am doing, or what I am looking for, but I have the opportunity to go out into the world and look for it. And somehow, in a bizarre way, they made me feel better about the decisions I have made about this trip.

My long and tiring bus ride finally ended in Terra Haute, since this was the closest town to Bloomington that I could book a bus ticket to. The local nickname “Armpit of Indiana” is not far off the mark. The greyhound terminal was a barn converted into a store where passengers were dropped off. There was no hope of finding a ride to Bloomington from here, so I looked in the local phone book and found a simple map of the area. Highway 46 ran straight to Bloomington, and I could get to 46 by traveling north on Highway 70 for roughly 10 miles. The sole attendant at this “terminal” told me that 70 was about a mile South. So I threw my pack on my back and started walking. I finally reached 70, and was told my a local fellow I met under the overpass that if I followed Margaret Street east for a few miles I would come to a truck stop on 46 and probably have an easier time finding a ride than hitching on 70. So I back tracked a bit and started walking down Margaret Street. 3 miles later, with most of the time with my thumb out, I stopped off in a gas station to refill my water bottle and ask exactly how far 46 was, since the bridge dweller had told me it was only “a few miles”. The kindly attendant told me I was looking at roughly 5 more miles. Then a wonderful lady that was paying for gas asked where I was headed and if I was walking there. She and her husband offered to give me a lift to highway 46, and told me that if there weren't headed to Indianapolis for their mother's 80^th birthday, they would drive me to Bloomington. I love nice people! A short air conditioned ride later, including an extremely kind-hearted conversation with the couple involving trying to think of anyone they know that would take me to Bloomington, I was dropped off at the truck stop on Highway 46.

I then spent an hour trying to procure a ride, until finally a truck driver asked where I was headed and was going in the same direction. Jerry had a rig with several cars he was actually hauling down to Texas, one being a beautiful '69, hot pink hotrod he had just bought for himself. After a bit of fussing around, Jerry finally decided that he really didn't need to take his entire rig to Bloomington because he was planning to stay the night in Terra Haute, but he would take me there any way. So he pulled his personal truck (not the hotrod) off his rig and drove me into Bloomington, even thought it was completely out of his way. I finally met up with Vanessa at the local mall where Jerry dropped me off around 7pm, thus ending my marathon 31 hour journey.