April 8 2010

Thursday, April 8, 2010

April 8 2010

Thursday Bus
5 am
Drive to airport in Nashville after eating a muffin and drinking a coffee and an orange juice.
Missed the car return lane (who can read at that time of morning? Use pictures! Graphics! Logos!)
Got it the second time around
Infernal beeping at the gate: 45 minutes of 2-toned beeps even the security guards couldn't turn off--another airline guy did it.
Load the plane, sitting next to a candidate for a job at the Christian Sports Camp in Durango
She didn't like sitting in front of toddlers so she moved.
I didn't mind, but I didn't sleep much, either.
Landed early, and waited on the tarmac.
I couldn't wait to get off the plane. I started to ache.
Off the plane and down to baggage claim
where I was the baggage, since I hadn't brought any and that was where my ride was claiming me
--my scrubby ride, with his pseudo daughter, his girlfriend's (I guess she's his girlfriend) daughter
Through Denver to the bus station
And a lovely walk with language of social mischief (like mooning the camera at a model's shoot in the park) after I bought my ticket
My seat on the bus was next to a baggageless, pistachio eating gentleman with a t-shirt over his long-sleeved shirt and a scrubby days-on-the-road face topped with a ball cap.
He was on his way to San Bernardino.
We looked at the bus station in Idaho Springs where no one got on.
Stops like that slow us down.
Then the bus broke down.
Proper woosh and more infernal beeping.
The driver pulled over and got out.
And in. And out. And in.
And turned the bus off. And on. And off.
At least when he turned the bus off, the beeping stopped, and when he decided he was having a smoke, he left the bus and the beeping off.
Then he told us we would be there a while and we could get off it we wanted.
I wanted.
I had wanted to make a snowman since we'd stopped.
I had wanted to throw snowballs since I started aching from all the sitting.
So I went.
And I built a snowball but all my fight offers were declined.
So I built a snowman.
I put a chain belt on him.
I put a chunk of wood as his arm, and a plastic, ridged tube as the other arm.
I hunted for a hat.
I found a newspaper to fold into a hat.
But by then he was wearing a hubcap. The gentleman in the baseball cap going to San Bernardino had helped.
My snowman was cheerful.
I marked his location on my garmin.
I followed the footprints across the field and up the hill to watch the interstate traffic with the others who had preceded me.
One man had lost his phone tromping through the snow.
He found it on his way back to look for it. Just *plop* in the snow. He must have just dropped it.
The snow had made my fingers cold. I kept rubbing my hands together.
Someone headed down the hill with a guitar. He had been odd. He was still odd. He had bemoaned not getting off at that stop that was useless. He should have gotten off there.
Some others took their luggage off the truck. They headed up hill. Hitchhiking. To the nearest ski town.
Some others took their luggage off the truck. A friend came to get them. For skiing.
The rest of us took our luggage off the truck after the mechanic (who finally arrived) said he couldn't guarantee the air brakes would work for the rest of the trip.
A new bus came. The hitchhiking passengers left us with more sitting room.
We didn't need to stop in Frisco for a smoke break. We were 5 hours behind schedule.
The boy behind me would get to his destination just before 9 am if there were no more delays, said my garmin.
He said good, he was getting off leave from the navy base where he worked on a nuclear reactor. He would get in trouble if he wasn't there by 9.
I said good, because nuclear reactors aren't something you should be willing to allow people to be late to work for.
(Then I thought of the price for Maggie Simpson, and the corresponding beep.)
In Glenwood Canyon we passed the hole in the highway where the rockslide took out a chunk of asphalt the size of my living room. We could see in it while they worked on it. Buses are tall that way.
We stopped for food in Glenwood Springs where no one saw the fast food place but me, and no one listened while I announced it, and everyone complained that I had a burger and they had convenience store food.
Then I ate my burger and wished I had potato chips.
Then it got dark. I told the girl sitting across from me who I gave my apple to that I would wake her in Clifton to call her ride.
Then I tried to sleep. Then we got to Clifton. Then woke her. Then I called my ride.
Then I got off the bus and was picked up and then I picked up my kids and went home to bed with a kid nestled on each shoulder.
I had been gone a long time.