You get a different crowd out west, I think. Most of the people getting on the Portland to Seattle bus were going much farther-- Idaho, Montana, Wisconsin-- and the bus was already half full with people travelling through when it pulled up two hours late. The girl in front of me was coming up from California and had already been on the bus for 16 hours. A generally amicable group, a few families, lots of joking around in the back like we were on a rugby trip or something, not a completely random bunch of strangers.
A row back on the other side of the aisle there was a guy in a black cowboy hat trying to convince his seatmate to join Americorps. Or maybe he was just selling the idea in general because every time I tuned in he was listing another benefit. "They give you $1000 a month and pay for your travel."
The guy next to me in line at the gate was obviously intoxicated. But in a friendly, semi-stranger you might meet at a friend's party way, not the sketchy guy on the street way. He was headed to Billings, going home after three years of living in Portland, and hey, if I had that many hours on the bus ahead of me i would have shown up drunk, too. At that point I was so sleep deprived I was probably less coherent than he was anyway, and it reminded me of the time I spent the night in the Atlanta airport and had a conversation with the cleaning guy at 2 am trying to explain why I had been in Florida, because I was on the rowing team. Not the growing team.
Asked if I was backpacking, I said no, I'm just going back to Olympia.
1 comment:
wow. i wish i knew what americorps program that guy was doing; i KNOW i get less than half that; and NO travel included. that said, i spent the day pulling out fencing that was protecting the piping plovers all summer long on yet another beautiful cape cod beach. i love my service.
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