Our bus ride was really uneventful until New York. The traffic getting into New York was appalling, and we were late by at least an hour. We were half panicked, as we needed to make a connection in New York for Boston, and we weren’t sure what our other choices were. As it was, we weren’t arriving in Boston until 11:30 at night, and we had someone meeting us there, driving at least an hour to get there.
Typical of a huge city, the New York bus terminal was immense. We had our small carry-on luggage, two big snorkel bags, stuffed to the gills, and at least three good-sized cardboard boxes. Needless to say, there was no way we could carry all that ourselves, and Murphy’s Law kicked in – our next bus was clear across the huge terminal. It was worse than many airports! Luck smiled on us in the shape of a baggage guy who agreed to take our boxes and snorkel bags over to the next bus while we ran for the departure gate.
What a long hour or two it was! Hot and tired and sweaty, we finally found our departure gate, only to find out that the line wound around the block. Chelsea grabbed a spot for us in line while I went hunting down our baggage. It didn’t come and it didn’t come and it didn’t come. I went hunting it down, with no luck. Meanwhile the panic levels rose higher because Chelsea realized she had left her wallet with her passport, bankcards and cash in her carry on bag that she had put on top of the luggage cart. I got some great practice taking deep relaxation breaths.
To make matters worse, it looked like the bus was going to be full before we ever got to the front of the line. My deep relaxation breaths must have done the job, as our luggage guy finally came slowly around the corner. About 20 minutes later, the Greyhound people decided to add a bus, so the first one took off, and we were able to get seats on the next one.
The bus was a happy affair, filled with students returning to Boston. They were a bright and educated group, and talked and laughed a lot. That was the good news. The bad news was that this bus too was absolutely jammed, and the traffic was like a bad joke. We just crawled along, hour after hour. We finally stopped for a break about 10 pm, and called our ride, only to find out that he was already headed to Boston. We warned him we’d be late, quite late. As we climbed back on the bus after our break, with everyone still in good spirits despite the delay, our bus wouldn’t start.
The short story is that we crawled into Boston at 4 am, after an expected arrival time of 11:30 pm. The terminal was deserted, there were no luggage carts in sight, and Chelsea and I still had all those boxes and bags to push and shove and drag down interminably long hallways, stairs, and elevators. We made a vow that we would never be caught in a situation like that again. We finally collapsed into bed at 6 am.