Greyhound vs Snailhound

Happy New Year everyone!

Colin and I have returned from Golden, where we were visiting the "Super Sleuths" (aka: JLo) for a week. We had a wonderful time! I will blog about the actual visit once I've had time to look through the millions of photos we took.

But for now, a little transit story to keep you entertained in the meantime.

We drove up with JLo, so we had no car. So we planned in advance to take the Greyhound bus home. A scheduled 10 hour bus ride, but we were actually looking forward to it so we could relax together, play some games, and have a nice long nap.

We woke up on Jan 1, 2007 a little late. The tickets said to be at the bus depot 45 minutes early (10:10 am). We didn't make it quite that early, but I was glad. You see, the Golden bus depot didn't even open on New Years Day, so we were stuck waiting in the car. It was reaaally cold outside too.

Since we had our tickets, it shouldn't really matter that the bus depot didn't open. However, when we purchased our tickets in Coquitlam, we were informed that we'd get baggage tags in the Golden bus depot. So when the bus came, in our unmarked bags went.

The bus was nearly full. No two seats together could be found. Despite my whining about it to Colin, who was sitting across the isle and back a bit, and despite me trying to be super annoying by stretching my arm to hold hands with him, no one budged.

COME ON PEOPLE! Why do you need the window seat if you are SLEEPING??????

ARGH.

The bus left relatively on-time. It drove HALF A BLOCK, then stopped in a Subway parking lot. The bus driver announced "It's 11:00 now, we'll be stopping for lunch here for 45 minutes".

No. That's impossible.

It was an unscheduled stop.

So we had to wait in the bus for 45 minutes.

Shortly after we FINALLY got going again, the snow started. We hit the Rogers pass and it was a blizzard. At times I couldn't even see out the window, because it was so white. Colin had his GPS and noted that even though it was so stormy, the bus driver was still going, like, 114 km/hour on the wintery road. I tried to sleep with no success.

There was nothing to do but people-watch.

There was this guy who just could NOT sit still. Fiddling with the light/air buttons. Going to the bathroom every 20 minutes. Taking his clothes out of the overhead area, going through them, and putting some on, and dropping socks on people. He was a slow mover too, so everything took too long. I don't know why I was annoyed at him, but I was.

My most uncomfortable moment came when a large, very intimidating looking man who was sitting across from me started swearing at the bus driver who apparently walked past him and brushed his face while he was sleeping. The small framed bus driver stood up for himself very well.

I sat beside Batwoman herself. She had a Batman pillow and was reading "The Batman Handbook". The part of the book I spied was a page describing how Batman scubadives. And guess what movie came on our pint sized TV's? "Batman Begins"! Unfortunately, she had reached her destination and didn't get to watch it.

In Sick-a-moose (I'm not even going to TRY to spell it), we were able to steal 2 seats together which was perfect! We only had one set of headphones, so we each could take an ear to hear the last two movies.

There were 3 movies. Other than "Batman", the other two are not worth mentioning, but I will mention "The Lady Killers" so none of you ever waste time to watch it. I wish I hadn't wasted BUS time to watch it, and that's saying a lot. The movies did help pass the time though.

In Kamloops we were stopping for dinner. They try to suck all your money out of you by making you buy lunch in their cafeteria which sells a small fries for $3. We're not falling for that. So we went for a jog across town to the closest fast food joint we found, where I fell and scraped my knee. By the way, did you know my name means "Graceful"?

The 10 hour bus ride ended up taking 12 hours because the 10 minute stops turned into 20 minute stops, and I guess a bit had to do with the 2 blizzards we encountered on both the mountain passes.

That's half an entire day, and 4 hours longer than a car ride.

We got home with enough time to empty all the boxes in our cupboards to try and put something together that resembles "lunch", then pass out exhausted.

I'm not sure we'll take the Snailhound again.