I loaded the greyhound bus from Victoria, Texas to Houston. It was only a two hour ride through bouts of traffic, a hot, stuffy, and overly crowded bus. I wouldn't mind. After all I did get lucky.
Well-sorta.
You see, the greyhound station in Victoria (which actually happens to be a Chevron gas station) has no computers working. So, the lady behind the counter said there were no tickets available for a bus ride to Rochester, Minnesota. She did give me some advice.
"Ask the bus driver if he will take you to Houston. Then you can pay in Houston."
So I took her advice, and took on the overly crowded bus on the way to Houston.
I didn't really mind the ride. I tried to sleep and couldn't. What bothered me in the short run was being stuck in traffic for over and hour. Everyone, including the Hispanic man next to me was getting anxious. I didn't blame him. I just continued staring out the window in hopes we would be back on our way soon. I didn't know if the road we were on was blocked due to the heavy rains earlier in the past weeks, but as soon as we exited on Gessner, the road cleared up, the vehicles behind us were able to freely move, and once again we were stuck in traffic.
We were supposed to arrive in Houston around 1:00 PM. We arrive a little after 2:15 PM. I knew without a shadow of a doubt I would not miss Houston, the traffic or the Texas weather.
I shuffled into the bus station to follow the bus driver down the exit lounge only to find myself in a whole new ball park. One that I didn't know the Houston bus station had. It had a cafe to the right and a place where you could purchase your tickets on the left. I actually had to pay the lady behind the counter the $30.50 from Victoria to Houston. After that, it was all up to me to learn how to use the "self purchase" computer. I followed the directions as best as I could only to find out that there was no bus leaving that day for Rochester. The next bus wouldn't be until Sunday, May 1 at 6:15 AM. Did I have a choice? Not really.
So after confirming my destination, I slid the $209.50 into the slot. It was that much. Plus the $30.50 from Victoria. I'm gonna be broke later.
Throughout the day, people were coming and going and I felt like the out cast. I had my luggage near the charge center in hopes noone would take my stuff. I went out for a couple smoke breaks, ate at the café, spoke to some guy that had been stranded for two days. Bless his heart he was headed to Dallas and someone stole his ID and money so he was stuck trying to receive money from his mother through the local moneygram but he didn't have an ID so that didn't work. He had begged for change here and there and noone helped him. So, I handed him four dollars out of my own and some other lady gave him seven dollars out of hers. It seemed to help. He was still short $40 but ended up getting the help he needed and was back on his way to Dallas.
I continued charging my phone at the charge station. Rounds of people kept pouring in. Some from Texarkana, others from Los Angeles. Interesting people came walking in too. I saw a Muslim family, I chatted with a guy from Pakistan, there was a girl going to New Orleans, one going to Portland Oregon which was a 69 hour ride, there was one girl (don't know her name) with a tiny tube top, khakis and stripper boots that tried to get me to go to the bar that was a couple blocks away.
She kept insisting. "You're not leaving until six."
I told her I didn't want to be on the bus drunk. She kept insisting, I kept telling her no. I think she got the idea later on.
Later on, as the evening hit I was bored. I did a little bit of coloring. Kept charging my phone, left little messages here and there on Facebook.
But I was bored.
As nightfall begun, everyone I had been aquatinted with had gone. The New Orleans girl was gone. The Pakistani guy was gone. The girl going to Portland was gone. Even the Muslim guy that had done his 10:00 PM prayers was gone.
I laid down on the bench as best I could. People were telling me how I was pale, worn out and almost looked like I was going to drop dead. So I slept for two hours, not back to back and it helped just a little bit.
Early morning rolled around and I decided to try and sleep. It didn't do much. The Texarkana bus rolled in around 3:00 AM and I went ahead and checked my luggage in. The man said it was too early but he was going to check it anyways.
At 5:00 AM I missed Gary's call. I had closed my eyes "for just a second" and I missed his call. At least he left a voice message.
"Okay, so I am at the airport. I will call you at landing time. I love you baby. Take care."
The hardest part was missing his call. It happened everyone I was doing something else.
The time was close to 5:30 AM and I had decided to go out for one last smoke break and get in line.
At 6:00 AM we had boarded the bus and by 6:10 AM we were on our way to Texarkana, with the exception of a few stops in between: Livingston, Lufkin, Kilgore, and Shreveport, Louisiana.
We had a couple smoke breaks and potty breaks. Some people departed, some arrived. I even took a few pictures to send to my friends back home in Yoakum.
It would only be a couple hours later that we would arrive in Louisiana and that would be the last time I saw Texas.
