Riding A Greyhound Bus From Iowa City, Iowa to NYC

I've had a lot of people request a report of my cross country travel on Greyhound. So here it is for better or worse!

I am currently writing a novel for adults (not to be confused with Adult books which are I think porno). It's just that I normally write for young adults or younger audiences. In this novel, my main character lives in Iowa City Iowa (I lived there 18 years ago and really loved the setting so that's why I chose it for a book). For reasons I won't get into here, this mother of 11 leaves home, runs away and wants no trail behind her, for her abusive husband to follow. So using cash she buys a one way ticket from Iowa City to New York City. I've had this idea for a novel for several years, but felt I would have to do a lot of research to make the New York City part accurate. However, when we moved to NYC two years ago, and since then as I have traveled to different parts of the city, my mind has often filled with my character and why she would be at this place. Soon she was taking over a lot of my mind, and everywhere I went, to the subway, the local grocery, or to a museum, I would think, what she would do in this place. And so I began writing the novel.

When an invitation came to speak at a library in Iowa early this fall, I was thrilled. I flew out, I rediscovered Iowa City, which had changed in 18 years, met lots of lovely writers--young and old, teachers and librarians, spoke in three high schools, two libraries and found the grey hound bus station and the fictional home where my character would take her last walk from to the bus station.

And then I got on the bus for 35 long eventful hours after which I finally arrived in NYC, tired, with lost luggage, a new wonderful friend Shirley, an iphone full of photos and notes from all that had happened to me, and now hopefully will vicariously happen to my character.

One of my main questions before getting on the bus is why people would choose to ride on the bus. My one way plane ticket to Iowa, admittedly thought about and purchased far in advance, was only $86.00. My one way bus ticket, also bought in advance, was $166.00. So it was cheaper to fly and I can tell you from having just done both, much easier and more comfortable to fly.

So why do people ride the greyhound bus?

My character gave me one of the first reasons. She paid cash and even in this post September 11th era (my story is based in the year 1999 for very particular reasons which would take a very long time to explain), in my cross country bus travel I was never asked for any I.D. So if you don't want to leave a paper trail, ride the bus.

Another reason I believe is because not only can you pay in cash, but travel at about the same cost whether you book a month in advance or the day you are traveling. My new met on the bus friend Shirley, who will play into my story later, often rides the bus. She's in her 70's and told me her adult children would much rather she fly, but she is a spontaneous traveler, and by the time she decides to go to Mobile, Alabama her hometown for example or in this case Chicago, from NYC, it is much cheaper to ride the bus. Plus she has been doing it all her life and she feels safer with this mode of travel.

I think a third reason is that people don't have credit cards or perhaps they don't have good credit. And most of air travel is paid for over the phone or on the internet with a credit card.

But I think a strong reason one the stayed with me as I observed situations arise on our trip, fit into my character's reasons. No paper trail.

We had a long stop at the bus station in Chicago. I was walking around the two room bus stop, stretching my legs, trying to get all the kinks out when I noticed one police officer, then two, then four all questioning one woman who had two small children with her and garbage bags of their belongings on the floor around them. She was nursing the baby and she and her toddler aged daughter were sharing a very small hamburger from the café at the bus stop. I can tell you, bus stop food is horrible! I am glad I bought two apples, yogurts and some peanuts before I started the trip.

I began to think of my character as I saw the police women and men two of each, closing in on this woman. My character could have already have a missing person's report on her. What would she do? Hide in the bathroom? Keep her head down low? But if she hid, she'd miss the muffled call for her particular bus. It was hard to hear the buses being called out in all the confusion that seemed to exist at every bus stop, so I began to depend on Shirley a fellow bus rider, who rode the buses a lot, and was also heading to NYC to know when we should stand in line at a particular door to board our bus again.

This woman and her two children and all her garbage bags of belongings were taken. I stood at the glass doors and watched as the police loaded them into a van and took them away. I don't know if the mother was arrested, was a runaway, or abused and needed protective custody. All I know is my character who thought once she got on the bus she would be safe, would now feel frightened.

I was so afraid someone would steal my wallet if I slept that night that I bought one of those travel neck purses and put all my important id, credit cards, cell phone and cash in it, and kept it hidden under my zipped hoodie. I did sleep on the bus. And the next morning I awoke to the sun shining golden on the corn fields, small towns with white steeple churches surrounded by vibrant trees of red, yellow and orange.

About mid morning in this heavenly setting a woman came running up to the bus driver. She was frantic. She told him that an older woman was unconscious and the woman's daughter could not revive her. She told him he needed to call 911 and get an ambulance. Many of us (me included) had headphones on, listening to whatever, I was listening to an Alexander McCall Smith book on audible on my iphone. Other people were talking on their cell phones. Our bus driver called 911 and pulled over to the side of the road. Everyone took their head sets out. Everyone stopped talking on their phones. We all held our breath as the woman who had gone to the bus driver and the daughter of this unconscious woman tried to revive her. Finally they did. She took a sip of water. By this time the highway patrol had arrived, a few minutes before the ambulance. A state trooper came aboard. I wanted to turn my face and hide, even though it was only what my character would want to do. Once again I realized she would feel very vulnerable with the trooper's presence. And now here is where I got mad. This elderly woman had had some sort of medically traumatic episode. She could not speak English, she was Latino. The first question out of the officer's mouth was not, "How are you Mam? Are you okay?" But "Would you please show me your I.D.?" None of us had been asked for ID to board the bus, but now this seemed to be the most important question. I had a sick feeling that if I, a Caucasian woman with proper ID had had the heart attack instead of this woman I would not have been asked for my I.D. I believe I would have been asked, if I was okay.

This poor woman only had a foreign passport. She did not want to get on the ambulance. She did not want to go to the hospital. I felt so badly for her. The medics arrived and they took her stats and she kept insisting through her daughter, who spoke English that she did not want to leave the bus. But the EMT's said her stats were very bad and she needed to go to the hospital for her own well being. What a mess. They finally got her to go. I assume if she got well, she and perhaps her daughter were deported. Obviously I am letting my bias on illegal visitors to our country be known here. And I could go into a tirade of how people like this woman work long hard hours doing work most Americans don't want to do and how these same American are more than happy to pay cheap wages for illegal workers to do the work they don't want to do themselves. Okay enough on that. But in my head my character was scared until the ambulance was loaded and the state trooper finally left our bus.

Everyone was silent for a long time, still no cell phones, or use of head sets. It was like we were all respectfully worried for this woman, and we just gave her some moments of silence. I felt at one with my fellow bus riders at this time. An hour later however, we were back to our normal bus routines, eating out of our bags of food, calling loved ones on cell phones, and me, back to listening to my Alexander McCall Smith mystery.

Things went fine and calm until we stopped in Philadelphia at the bus stop for our bus to get refueled. We were told it would be a very short stop and that we could leave our personal belongings on the bus.

Shirley was sitting where I could see her, talking on the phone to someone in her family. I kept my eyes on her as I walked around the bus station talking to my husband on the phone. He didn't know how to put a new audio book on his ipod. I always did it for him, so I was walking him through the instructions and keeping my eyes on Shirley so I would know when we were called to go to the bus. Time passed, I successfully instructed my husband, and now he had a new book to listen to on his Ipod. We were chatting and I was walking around the bus stop when I finally thought I should ask Shirley why we weren't reloading yet?

Well to make a long story short, Shirley had been watching me not listening for the bus call and I in turn was watching her and not listening for the bus call and sadly we missed our bus. All Shirley's medicines and coat and of course our luggage was stowed away on the bus that had already pulled out and headed for NYC without us. We were devastated, and anxious, she for her medicines, me for a cute coat I had got at a bargain price and would not be able to replace.

The bus station people were nice to us, and told us the next bus to NYC would leave in two hours and we could be on it. They gave us a free voucher for dinner. I declined. It was horrible food. Shirley took a coffee and cinnamon bun, but the bun was too dry in the end to eat. We talked more and I told her why I was riding the bus and she thought it was so funny that I would ride across country just to get into my character's point of view. She told me about being a spontaneous traveler and how her children wished she wouldn't ride the bus. She told me about coming to NYC in 1961 from Mobile, Alabama to become a Domestic Engineer, and about putting herself through Queens College so she could get a better job. We discovered we lived less than three miles from each other in Queens.

We did get on the next bus and miracle of miracles all our belongings were in a holding cage at the bus station in NYC. We were so relived. Well, until the next day when I would discover someone must have taken my new camera my daughter has just bought me out of my lunch bag, but left me the apple and peanuts. Thank you very much. My husband picked Shirley and me up at two a.m. Shirley, spunky and self reliant had been going to carry all her luggage on the subway and then walk the several blocks from the subway home alone in the middle of the night. She was very grateful for the ride.

I learned a lot from riding the bus. My fellow riders were respectful and polite and caring, and but of course someone was a little quick with their fingers to steal my camera. Still all in all it was a good experience, and one I will not be repeating. I am not a spontaneous traveler. And I have proper ID and a credit card. I feel very grateful for those simple things I had taken for granted until my cross country trip on Greyhound. I will be using planes for future travel. But I will not forget why people ride the greyhound bus. And I will remember this one cross country ride for the rest of my life!