I’m back from the United Kingdom! And holy hell, what an ass-pain it was to get home. I had an incredible time at Goodwood, and we have plenty more good stuff coming about that, so please stay tuned. But I have to say, mostly due to the cruel, capricious whims of weather, who lately has liked to dump rain down all over me, partially flooding my basement and then showing me a rainbow or two so I’ll get all misty-eyed and forgive them, like some kind of serial abuser, this trip has been, um, challenging.
First, there was the strange set of weather-related circumstances that had me routed through the Bermuda Triangle, and that was after my original flight was cancelled, making me have to start the trip about 12 hours later.
But the worst part was what happened yesterday, as I was trying to get home. I flew from London into JFK in New York (you know, the airport named for Jeff Fucking Koons) and then was supposed to get a flight from JFK to my home-base airport at RDU. Sadly, though, cruel cruel weather conspired again, and not only was my flight cancelled, they couldn’t book me on any other flight until motherscratching Wednesday.
Wednesday.
Matt was a sweetie and offered to let me stay at his place just outside the city and feed me good food and all of that, and while I appreciated that, I just wanted to get home. I checked other airlines, trains, everything, and eventually finally found the answer, and it was a painful one: the bus.
Yes, the bus! There was a bus, for $80, less than what it would have cost to Uber to Matt’s place, that would leave at 10:00 pm and get me home by 7 in the morning. I bought a ticket, oddly curious about what the experience would be like.
Next thing I knew I was in Chinatown, in a tiny and kinda dingy waiting room with so much weed smoke in the air the ceiling fan was telling me how freaky it would be if the color red it saw was different than the color red I saw.
I mean, I’m not expecting much for $80, and really it’s fine, but the contrast between that environment and where I was about 24 hours before, when I was within elegant-gin-and-tonic-spitting distance of a literal Duke, was pretty jarring.
The biggest issue that I noticed with the cheap, last-minute bus experience I think has to do with information: finding out anything is a pretty chaotic process. Is the bus idling outside the one I’m supposed to get on? No idea, at least until finally someone yelled something about Indiana. So that wasn’t it.
Eventually, enough people seemed to be mentioning “Raleigh” so I got onto the plain white oddly generic bus that was probably headed to where I needed to go, and once on, it was generally clean and in decent condition so I can’t really complain about that.
It wasn’t easy to sleep on the bus at all, and the lack of communication still remained an issue: we stopped a few times, and it wasn’t clear if these were stop stops to let people out or just opportunities to walk out and pee? I’m still not sure.
Eventually, we arrived at my stop, which was not a bus depot or anything that I was expecting; it was a strangely desolate and maybe out-of-business shopping center. I had to look at the map on my phone for the address to know that this was, in fact, where I needed to be. If I didn’t realize that, I think I’d be in Georgia now.
What if I was asleep? Or confused? Or both?
Whatever. I’m home finally, and that’s what matters. And I’m thankful for that $80 overnight bus.
This was not an easy travel experience, but I can’t say it was horrible, exactly. Just you know, kinda shitty. I’m exhausted and dirty and cranky but I’m home, and that’s what matters. But I bet you have better stories, and I want to hear them! What kinds of misery have you had to endure after a trip just to get home?
Kvetch away!
My worst was a business trip home to central plains of the US after a week in New Delhi.
Got up Friday morning local time (Thursday evening Central time), went into the office for the last day, then they took us to dinner, and finally off to the airport for a midnight departure. I made the mistake of getting a soda with ice before we boarded, which would become an issue before I made it home. (At the advice of others, I’d been using only bottled water the whole trip, including when rinsing my tooth brush.)
The flight to the East Coast lasted about 17 hours, on a fully loaded 777. Economy class, because my employer was cheap. It was horribly uncomfortable, because there was some equipment box under the seat in front of me so I couldn’t stretch out. (And here I thought I was a little bit lucky scoring a window seat. Not so much.) I don’t think I slept at all. Then the runs started hitting about 12 hours into the flight.
Finally landed and cleaned myself up as best I could during my 2.5 hour layover for the flight to Denver. (The rest of the group had a short layover for their direct flight to Omaha.)
Then the 4.5 hour flight to Denver, followed by a couple more hours of layover, followed by another hour and forty five minute flight home. Lots of quality time in the toilets both on the ground and in the air.
My wife picked me up at the airport at 5:30 PM Saturday. Got home about a half hour later (after a brief stop through a drive thru because I was craving a something made out of beef), and immediately hit the shower for the first time in about 47 hours.
The pants and underwear went in the garbage.
1. I hope you were like 27 then, because that’s the kind of stamina required for what you just described
2. Definitely hard to top this off, you win!
Early 40s, actually. I went to bed right after the shower and slept for about 14 hours.