I want to talk a little bit about bus travel, since I’ve spent 30+ hours on them and I’m about to spend another 10 or so. It’s become obvious to me through this whole little adventure that the *way* we experience travel will end up telling as much about what we see - and what we learn about ourselves - as where we go. There’s a certain rhythm to what I experienced on the bike, and the bus is really different. On the bike I found myself slowly relaxing, starting to trust myself more and more. I felt almost comfortable there, by the end of it. On the bus, I feel terribly terribly exposed. The general goodwill towards man is still there, but I look a bit suspiciously at my fellow traveler. It doesn’t help that they look suspiciously at me. Part of it is my concern about the bike - my home, as I told one bus driver - trapped under the bus. I feel it down there, much like if someone was flying with a dog that had to go into the luggage compartment. I want to rescue it. I keep worrying that it won’t make a connection.
That’s not to say that it’s all bad. For some reason the bus has developed a bad rap in this country. But the truth is that they’ve all run on time, they’re clean, they have outlets and wi-fi, and - unlike flying or the train - at least I have gotten to see some of the country I’m traveling through. I got to witness the sparse regularity and almost bewildering niceness of Fargo, I walked through the rain and wind to get the only true deep dish pizza in the world in Chicago’s Giordano’s, and I - despite overwhelming odds to the contrary - ran a 6 minute mile to eat at Culver’s in Tomah, Wisconsin. So not all bad. But there’s a weird edge to my words and my thoughts that I very much look forward to shaking off them when I get to Buffalo. The form of the traveller has changed from Missoula to here. In the beginning it was all caucasians, of the sort you would expect in Montana, one with a shirt that said “Welcome To America. Now Speak English.” By this point, it’s mostly African-Americans. But the essential *distrust* doesn’t seem to come from the color. It’s something about actually being on the bus. Or maybe it’s the fact that the bus is seen as the place of last resort. There’s a defensiveness about it than I certainly didn’t experience on a bike or in a car, or even on the train. Just like air travel seems to turn even good people into dour-faced stodges, the bus seems to turn everyone a bit paranoid. Maybe it’s the fact that, on a bike, you’re your own man, but on the bus - much like air travel or the train - you’re at the mercy of this complex and uncaring system. I was in a convenience store in Montana, near the border, opening some nachos, when the bus driver called for everyone to get back on. I panicked and threw money at the attendant and ran back to the bus. A block down the road I realized I’d left my ticket on the counter at the shop. I went up and told the driver, and she let me go back and get it. I’d never run so fast in my life. I had a vision of being stranded, alone, in rural Montana. I’m starting to understand the American fascination with controlling your own method of transport.
I’ve been quoting from it for a while, but the book Blue Highways, which I’ve been reading for a week or so now, does a good job of highlighting what it would be like to travel the small towns of america with motorized transport. I have this romantic notion that it would be fun to ride the same track he took, either with a van like he had, or on a motorcycle or other small individual transport. He’s an excellent writer, although he’s definitely bleak and sad. I sympathize, but I think I’ve escaped the worst of my depression. I have no idea what will come next, but the bike made me optimistic. Maybe he should have tried that.
With a bit of perspective from being off the bike, I think it’s a good time to look at what I might have learned about myself. I remember before the trip I was very aware not to have high expectations - or any - about what I would learn, or change, about myself while out on the road. I told everyone who would listen that I was aware I might wind up being exactly the same person I was when I left, just with a long ride under my belt. So I was pleasantly surprised to learn - or re-learn, or cement - a few things about myself. In no particular order:
1) If forced to pick, I’ll take being too hot over being too cold. I think this is one of those things that every man should figure out about himself at some point, and I’ve often wondered what my answer was. It’s hard because when you’re hot you wish for cold, and when you’re cold you wish for hot. But on this trip two things happened: I got to experience being too hot and being too cold back-to-back, and I had a lot of time alone to think about it. And what I realized is: I don’t *like* being too hot, but it doesn’t bug me that much. Being cold hurts. It physically hurts, deep in the bones. I can’t think, can’t act, can’t experience joy when I’m too cold. So there it is.
2) I love rivers. Even more than oceans. My favorite rides were through rural parts of Oregon and Montana with a river by my side. More than anything, the flow of a cool, clear stream over rocks, and the promise of whitewater, make me happy. Similarly, but less so, I prefer forests to deserts or swamps or any others. So my favorite is forested river banks.
3) I like the new. I love motion, and change - of scenery, of ideas. Of course I always knew this, but I think it’s really coming home to me that I’m seriously just happier when different things are happening to perplex and confound me.
4) Food defines me. It runs under everything I do. I love food, I love its cultural aspects, preparing food, eating food, socializing over food, talking about food. I just love food.
5) I do genuinely like people. When I give myself space to go about it at my own speed, and I’m given enough time on my own, I like to talk to strangers, and I find them interesting. I just need time and space to come at them in my own way.
6) I love being physically exhausted. It makes me feel happy, outgoing, optimistic. It has way more of a positive effect than I’d ever really considered before. Like getting out of a pool of cold water, I get suffused through with this positive glow.
I’m about to pull in to my “ancestral home” (to use some overblown language) of Buffalo, NY. But more about that next time.
