I woke up on the morning of departure and found myself staring down a bloated over-hyped hurricane named Irene that was threatening to put a “damper” on my getaway. My Amtrak train that I had booked 11 months in advance at the ridicule of the ticket office was already canceled, and I had rushed to buy a greyhound ticket the night before to make sure I got ahead of the other disgruntled Amtrak travelers wondering why they canceled a train going west when the storm was arriving from the south the next day.
Greyhound was in a bit of disarray as well as I soon found out, according to their website they were cancelling all buses east of I95 which made me a little nervous since my bus was operating out of Boston. So I called them up to see if this meant my bus was cancelled or if it would just start west of I95 instead…..as soon as I mentioned Massachusetts to the girl on the phone she cut me off and said “Oh no, all buses in Massachusetts are CANCELLED!” I didn’t have much to lose so I headed down to the stop anyways with my bags since the website seemed to refute her, and was rewarded since my bus was indeed running and had originated in Boston as planned.
Got on the bus for the first leg of my journey to Worcester and was pleased to see alot of normal people and also alot of open seats. I settled into a seat towards the back and breathed a sigh of relief as I was on my way…at least until Worcester. There was a transfer at Worcester and that bus might be cancelled but there was nothing to do but go for it!
Got to Worcester with about an hour to spare before the next bus was supposed to arrive but was greeted with the excellent news that it was indeed coming and was stuck in traffic so would probably be late. I did not care though as long as it showed up. The thing that is tricky about greyhound though is their first come first serve policy. Basically any seat is not guaranteed as they sometimes overbook so you have to make sure you stand in line or you may not get a seat(so i hear anyways). I was the second in line though so didn’t have much to worry about and passed the time chatting a little with the couple in front of me and staring at my luggage.
The bus finally arrived after the delay and I got on for the next piece of my travels. Unfortunately, this bus was absolutely packed so it was a little hard to get comfortable. I went to my happy place and kind of dozed in and out of reality for most of the trip until we hit Albany. Our bus driver was supposed to be replaced here but the new guy got taken off right before because 2 guys had missed their connection to Canada and he was the only one able to drive a bus to Canada apparently. I cast one envious eye at the two guys getting off our sardine packed bus who were going to have a whole bus to themselves and a weary eye to see the same driver who had been driving all day climb back aboard to take us to the promised land(Cleveland).
The beginning of the trip passed pretty uneventfully but as we got towards Buffalo, our bus driver told us they hadn’t told her whether she would continue on to Cleveland with us or be replaced by another driver. Well the answer ended up being none of the above as we got to Buffalo and she was told not to go on to Cleveland and that there would not be another bus until 6am. Luckily this even pissed the manager off that was at the station and he got on the phone to find us a driver from wherever midnight Greyhound bus drivers come from. This was actually surprisingly easy as a driver showed up an hour later to get us under way.
