Oh, the Greyhound

I just travelled to Phoenix, AZ, via the Greyhound.  For those of you who are not Greyhound veterans (as I now surely must be...34 hours on the bus makes it official), let me tell you that being on the bus provides an education that I never knew I was missing.  It gives me the chance to interact with people who are life affirming and enriching.  During my bus ride during the stretch from Phoenix to Vegas, I sat near:

-A 23 year old Chinese girl traveling alone to the Grand Canyon to work.  I gave her a fruit roll up and saw her triple check handwritten notes that provided her with step to step directions in a broken English.

-An African-American woman who was just released from Perry (a Women's Penitentiary) after four months for smoking pot.

-A Latina, drunk beyond belief, who borrowed my phone to call an ex-love who was refusing to pick her up from the station in Flagstaff.  She sobbed as the passengers around her listened, pained.

-A proud grandma who was heading to California to see a first grandchild.

As you can tell, I stayed around women as much as I could.  The one time I sat next to a man it was during the home stretch.  He may or may not have caressed my arm as I slept.  

There is some lesson from a Greyhound journey that cannot be learned in any other way.  I can't make sense of it.  It was a lovely, long journey.  I read two books and ate at McDonald's a whole lot. And, the destination of Tempe was  really what made the trip so much fun.  I loved spending time with Chris and Rebecca, whom I have missed most dearly.  We watched movies, received pedicures, ate Ethiopian and Thai food, and talked a whole lot.  It was difficult to come home and be in the real world once more.