The Greyhound Bus

Back in Eureka!

Yesterday, Matt and I took the Greyhound bus up to Eureka. Wow. Every preconceived idea I had about the Greyhound bus is true. First of all, it took 9 hours to do a 4 hour drive. Second of all, everyone on the bus was a freak, including the bus driver. We made the mistake of sitting near the back of the bus. We had no choice though, the only two seats together were in the back. This is also where the most freakiest people were.

There were two guys that literally just got out of San Quentin. They were still wearing their prison issued clothes.

There was a young looking blonde girl with a very cute two year old son. She was wearing a tie died tank top that she got through a "nifty lifty discount." I think that means stealing. Her son was so cute, but she was letting the poor guy run around the bus station with no shoes on and sit on the bust station floor and put things in his mouth. It was gross. A weird ghetto looking guy even told her that people puke on the floor sometimes. Of course, I understand that it is hard to have a kid and she looked young and was probably tired and stuff. It is still sad though...She was totally racist. It turns out that she knew one of the guys that just got out of prison from some parties in Arcata (just north of Eureka). He said he knew some guys for her and she was like, "as long as they are white". She kept making comments about Indians and black people and kept confronting these two black kids sitting near us. Also, she would yell at everyone to keep their language clean, but her language was not very clean at all!

There was a guy from Garberville who also knew the San Quentin prison guy. They knew each other from the Humboldt County prison. He was a really nice guy, actually, and he gave up his seat for a girl "cause that is what a real man does". He grows pot and sells it in Washington and Oregon and on the Arcata square. His front teeth were chipped so they looked like a triangle. At least he had teeth though...on this bus there were lots of people missing teeth! He spoke with a very interesting accent, I think it is a country accent. He was talking about how the Chicago Greyhound bus station is ghetto and he was afraid there...I made a mental note never to get near the Chicago Bus station.

There were lots of hippies on board. They were nice. I guess one of them just got back from a Rainbow Gathering in Colorado. They didn't jive so well with the racist girl...one of them stepped in and said he couldn't sit next to someone talking so bad about Indians. The girl got really quiet, then the San Quentin guy got mad cause the hippie hurt her feelings. Hmm. There were lots of weird verbal fights on this bus ride.

There was also this odd older woman. She was quite huge and seemed semi homeless. She was talking about churches where you could get food and clothes. It was really sad cause I heard her telling the man behind me that her Dad got remarried and her step mom didn't like her so she was kicked out when she was 14. She seemed nice enough, except that at one point she yelled a warning to everyone on the bus that "there might be narcs around" so they shouldn't talk too openly about drugs. I was like, "Oh no, I hope she doesn't think Matt and I are the narcs! We are the only normal people on here..." I was slightly afraid, cause the population on the bus was slightly unstable...they liked to get mad about things and gang up on people. There was lots of weird confronting and fighting going on.

There were black boys who looked like they were about 13 years old. One of them had all gold teeth on the bottom. One of them tagged on the back of the seat in front of him. I am not sure what they were going to do in Arcata. These boys sounded and looked like they had never been out of Oakland before. They were really rambunctious and kept yelling and cussing and the racist mom kept yelling at them. They said they were coming to see their girlfriends and buy pot. They were so young though, I think they were trying to sound tough...Matt says he thinks they said they were visiting their Grandma.

Other than that, there were some elder Humboldt county residents and a rich San Rafael girl holding a Louis Vuitton bag, playing "hippie" and talking about her pot dealing boyfriend.

The bus driver had a hard time dealing with everybody...Greyhound had sold too many tickets so their weren't enough seats. People had to sit on the floor in the aisle. He kept getting mad cause we were off schedule, but he took forever to load people on and off the bus. At one point, he tried to make everyone stopping in Ukiah get onto another bus, but he realized it was too hard to get all of their luggage off, but he spent a half an hour trying! Later, he told a woman with two babies to keep her kid quiet or she was off the bus. She yelled, "It's called eight hours on a bus, asshole!" He called the CHP and they came to meet us in Willets. They made the family change buses. The people on our bus were so mad, that when we stopped at McDonalds for dinner, everyone confronted him and were mean. He was walking around talking to himself about how the bus had to stay orderly and how he was "keeping a positive attitude to do the right thing". I feel bad for him because it wasn't his fault Greyhound sold too many tickets. He shouldn't have threatened to send the baby off the bus, but still, no matter what he did the bus was going to hate him. They seemed to hate all authority figures. Most of the conversation on the bus was about drugs, but if they weren't talking about drugs, they were talking about cops and how stupid they are.

Anyway, now we are finally in Eureka. I already feel extremely relaxed and very happy to be here. Now my only problem is figuring out how to get over to Grandma's house in Lake Almanor...maybe the Greyhound? :)