Several years ago—after I retired but before I moved from Dallas to Hot Springs Village—I tried to interest several people, one by one, to join me on a road trip by Greyhound bus. One by one, my suggestion was dismissed as ridiculous, silly, pointless, or otherwise without any merit. Whatsoever. Every one of my would-be traveling companions expressed disdain for the idea. Not only did they have no interest, they were completely unwilling to even consider the possibility. I could have opted to travel alone, but I wanted to travel with a companion; someone who could serve as an emotional anchor as we wandered long stretches of late-night roads, among strangers. But, after exploring the idea with everyone I thought might be willing to see the trip as an adventure, I slowly came to realize my desire was just a dream, the kind that does not invade reality as I hoped it might. The destination(s) were unimportant; I just wanted to have the experience. It might have mirrored the one I had when I was a kid (no idea how old…or young), when two friends and I traveled by bus from Corpus Christi, Texas to Dallas, Texas. My aunt hosted us for a couple of nights and gave us rides to and from Six Flags Over Texas, then sent us back to Corpus—again by bus—despite a disturbing experience on the trip north. A passenger sitting behind two of us kept reaching between the seats, trying to fondle us; when, finally, we told the bus driver, he stopped the bus and ejected the man. The details are a tad fuzzy, but I remember both relief when he was put off the bus and concern that he was left on the highway in the middle of nowhere.
Greyhound Stations
Something—I do not know what—sparked my curiosity again this morning in intercity bus travel. That curiosity led me to the Greyhound website. On a whim, I decided to check into the cost and timing of a round-trip ticket from Little Rock, Arkansas to Tucumcari, New Mexico. I was surprised to discover (remember?) that Greyhound does not serve Little Rock. So, I tried Memphis, instead. Bingo. The available bus on December 1 from Memphis leaves from the Memphis Bus Station at 2:30 a.m. and arrives at a McDonald’s in Tucumcari 17 hours later, after a transfer in Oklahoma City. Another scheduled departure leaves Memphis at 2:55 a.m. and arrives in Tucumcari almost 23 hours later, but that schedule is sold out. Return trips to Memphis depart Tucumcari just after 2:00 a.m. and get to the Memphis Bus Station 24-½ hours later, at 3:40 a.m.
Intercity coach used to be the travel choice of the poor. It probably still is, but it is not dirt cheap any longer. But the cheapest fare from Memphis to Tucumcari is only $117.97; I guess in today’s economy, that IS dirt cheap. One of the reasons I’m interested in travel by bus is to observe who the passengers are. I doubt I would see any well-to-do people riding the bus with me and the rest of the riff-raff (including poor students). But that may be a biased perspective. Whether bus riders tend to be from lower income brackets or not (I still firmly believe they are), I suspect their world-views differ from people who would not be caught dead on a motor coach whose passengers embody the stereotypes of the poverty-ridden.
My superficial scan of online information about assaults, other crimes, and injuries/ fatalities revealed that quite a lot of information has been published about intercity bus line safety. Transportation Research Board, Federal Transit Administration, Bureau of Labor Statistics, and a host of other organizations and agencies track such stuff. Police agencies, though, tend to keep records of types of crimes committed, rather than by locations. It makes sense, but…wouldn’t it be nice to have the data sliced and diced in ways that might reveal valuable insights about where crimes are committed, by type?
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The topic of this post is tangentially relevant to today’s holiday. I wonder whether a significant spike in bus travel occurs on and around Thanksgiving Day? I wonder whether anyone else is even remotely curious?
