By Way Of Vancouver

During the last days of TR Transport, I was marking up my road atlas with the routes I had taken all around the US over the years. I ascertained that I had visited thirty two states. A plan began taking shape that would, in one long bus trip, bring my total to forty six- if I was lucky, maybe forty seven.

In March of 1978 I moved back to Vero Beach, Florida and began to work with my dad upgrading Gil Emerson Commercial Art to the new Emerson Art Service. The best part of this situation, from a Gospel point of view, was that my summers were free from pressure. During the summer of '79 I snagged my next opportunity.

There was a booklet of tickets offered by Greyhound called the Ameripass, either seven or fifteen days of unlimited travel in the US and Canada. My plan was to clean up the holes on my map: Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona. California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, South Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Arkansas. I didn't want to waste precious days retracing states I'd already touched, so my plan was to enter Canada from Washington and reenter the US south of Winnipeg, Manitoba. I figured fifteen days would do the trick. Plus, I had the option of adding more days if the need arose.

On a Sunday evening in July I set out from Vero Beach. The bus station didn't have any Ameripasses in stock, so they sold me a ticket to Orlando, the price of which would be deducted from the pass when I bought it there. That all worked out well. At 11:00 Saturday night I was on my way with a page of my pass validated to Los Angeles. I found out that this schedule, Miami to Los Angeles, was the longest single bus route in the world. How 'bout them apples!

Monday morning I awoke in DeFuniak Springs, Florida. We had breakfast and continued on. This was when I learned that getting out of Florida across the panhandle takes a looooong time. Lunch was in Mobile, in my first new state. That little chunk Mississippi that hangs down to the Gulf went by the windows, and we were in Louisiana. This was when I learned that the causeway over Lake Ponchartrain gives me the willies- for a looooong time! Supper and buying post cards happened in New Orleans. It was getting dark as we approached Baton Rouge. I missed the Mississippi completely.

Tuesday morning we were in San Antonio, with two hours to spend eating breakfast etc. while they cleaned and refueled the bus. I, of course, went for a walk around the area of the bus station. I didn't see the Alamo. The most exciting thing: I was approached by a guy who was hanging out by a phone booth on the street. He wanted me to call some guy and tell him some line of shit, and I would get twenty bucks for my trouble. All I could see was the trouble. I told him no, repeatedly and vehemently.

Later that morning, the longest bus route in the world broke down just oustide if Midland, Texas. They called in a replacement bus from the Kerrville Bus Company, which took us all the way to El Paso. It was 9:30pm when we stopped, and a hundred five degrees in the dark. I don't know what the humidity was, but it was hot hot hot in El Paso.

The T-shirt I bought after breakfast Wednesday morning said, "Dateland Arizona: Two Miles From Water, Two Feet From Hell." Before we stopped, I had been awake for a little while watching the shadowy forms of sajuaro cacti stretching their arms to the sunrise. Very cool. I was really in the desert now. Western Arizona and eastern California went by the windows, and lunch was in San Diego. I peed next to a guy who kept leaning over the divider to try to see my business. He's really the only weirdo I've ever encountered in bus stations around North America. This is completely contrary to my mother's repeated warnings about the dangers of bus travel.

Los Angeles seemed completely uncomfortable to me. I had anticipated spending a night there to get cleaned up and sleep lying down. After walking around the blocks adjacent to the station, being offered ten or twelve different kinds of illegal substances, I returned to the ticket counter and got my next page validated to San Francisco.

I arrived there early Thursday morning and got a room in the first hotel I came to. I didn't sleep at all. I took a shower, changed clothes, put my stuff in a locker and set out to explore the city. My primary objective: to dip my toe in the Pacific. Secondary: buy a sweatshirt. Mark Twain said, "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco." He was right. It was coooold! I never found a sweatshirt for less than sixteen bucks (a lot in 1979) and my mother's voice in my head wouldn't let me buy one. But with the help of a map and a homeless guy, I figured out where to grab a trolley to the ocean. A twenty minute ride later I got off, walked out onto the beach, which was strewn with hundreds of sand dollars, took off my shoes and let the Pacific wash my feet. I picked up three sand dollars, got back on the same trolley to the bus station, and validated my next pages to Reno, Nevada by way of Sacramento. The scenery on the ride through northeastern California was among the most beautiful I've ever seen, a long stretch of green rolling countryside.

Reno seemed like a total waste of energy. Gambling doesn't appeal to me, and that's all I saw during the four hours I was there waiting for the next bus back to Sacramento. I bought some snacks, and my change was in Eisenhower silver dollars, which I was expected to drop into the nearest slot machine- two feet away from the cash register in the convenience store. I returned to the bus station and watched people, who were obviously weighed down by way too much money, dump it all into slot machines. I don't get it.

Friday morning I was rolling through the northern end of California. Mount Shasta was my first encounter with a mountain that just rose up out of the landscape with no preliminary hills. It just jumped straight up from the surrounding city like a huge conical wall. Oregon was charming, green and hilly, and Washington was a continuation of it.

Around 8:00 Friday night I arrived at my first real destination: Seattle. My hope was to catch a ferry to Alaska. A police officer directed me to the Savoy hotel, around the corner from the station. I took a bath in the claw-foot tub, and went to bed. It was 10:00am Saturday when my phone rang. It was the front desk person asking me if I was checking out or what. I told him I'd call him right back. I called the Alaska Ferry number. The ferry had left Friday morning and would be back in time to leave Tuesday morning. Damn! I called the desk to report that I would stay one more night. I set out to explore the city. I didn't have to ask where the Space Needle was. I could see it from nearly everywhere in the city. On my way there I passed a movie theater showing The Muppet Movie, noted the times, and continued on.

The area around the Space Needle was now the Pacific Science Center. I wandered it for a while, went to the top of the needle, and hustled back to the movie theater for the 2:30 show. Did I like it? Let's see, I saw it six times in theaters, twice on HBO, bought the soundtrack album on vinyl, then cassette, then CD, and now it's on my MP3 player; I bought the VHS and then the DVD. I think it's safe to say I liked it. Anyway, I wandered down to Pike Place Market and bought a few items, then went to a pizza place where they advertised free pizza if you didn't get it in twenty minutes. Mine came in twenty three, and it was free!

Sunday morning I packed up and checked out. Now maybe it's just on Sundays when I'm departing a city I really like, but the diarrhea tradition picked up where it left off in Chicago in 1974. I was in that bus rest room most of the way to Vancouver, and wasn't any better in Canada for the first few hours. That passed. The next affliction: it was cooooold on that bus eastbound across Canada. It was so cold that when a fellow passenger went to the back of the bus to smoke, I pulled his coat over me. He came right back and rousted me out of his coat.


Monday morning, my first waking moments were a picture I'll retain for the rest of my life. We were in the middle of the Canadian Rockies, rugged mountains, huge rocks, sparse trees and ice-rimmed meandering streams abounded. I looked down into a valley where two big deer were drinking from a stream. They heard the bus and looked up at me, then continued drinking.


Breakfast was in Banff, lunch in Medicine Hat, and that afternoon I finally got my cheap sweatshirt in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. Of course, it never got cold again the whole trip. Tuesday morning we were in Manitoba, having breakfast in Brandon. It was about 8:30 when we arrived in Winnipeg, and I was enchanted by the string of parklands along the highway. When I got off the bus I checked the schedule. The next bus south was at 4:30pm. I had eight hours to stow my stuff in a locker and wander the city. It was wonderful, sitting in cool grass watching red squirrels, breathing crisp clean air. Mmmmm

Back to reality. I tried to get another book of tickets from the guy at the desk in Winnepeg. He scowled and told me to get it in the States. Thank you too! I got it later that night in Fargo, North Dakota. That guy validated me to Sioux Falls South Dakota- a Reno-styled in-and-out stealth state collection. Greyhound didn't serve South Dakota or Nebraska. I had to go by way of Minneapolis. In Minneapolis Wednesday morning I rode to Worthington with a very chatty woman from whom I learned the midwestern accent. She asked me where I was going. I explained my mission. "Oh, well, you're almost home!" she said. I pulled out my Rand McNally Road Atlas. She was right.

The bus station in Sioux Falls (pronounced SUCKS! Falls) was a menagerie. Obviously the guy that operated it was a big game hunter, because there were bears, antelope, mountain sheep, deer, moose, caribou etc. stuffed and on display. I had two hours to sit there and wait for the bus to Omaha. I tried walking around, but there was nothing to see. It was worse than Reno!

The best thing about Omaha was that the next bus to Tulsa left soon after the one from Sucks Falls arrived. It was pretty late Wednesday night, and I didn't have time for anything but to validate my ticket and get on the bus. But I've been to Nebraska! That's the important thing.

There was a lot of grass in northern Oklahoma, grass and farm land. It was hot in Tulsa, too hot to walk around much. I had lunch and dozed in front of one of those quarter TV sets until the next bus to Memphis. Eastern Oklahoma and western Arkansas were very pretty, especially the Ozark foothills. supper was in Fayetteville, and I could see outside most of the way to Fort Smith. Breakfast was in Memphis. I shaved in Memphis, then validated to Vero Beach, Florida. After supper in Atlanta I called my dad to tell him I would be arriving Saturday morning around 11:00. I was back on familiar territory now, and did a lot of sleeping all the way home. I was out of money after Atlanta, so it worked out well.

So there you have it- my longest bus trip ever, from Vero Beach, Florida to Vero Beach, Florida by way of Vancouver, British Columbia. Fourteen new States were added to my list, and four Provinces of Canada. I still had one day left on my Ameripass. I told Greyhound they could keep it.