Greyhound Goes to Colorado

Being a survivor of the twenty-nine-hour bus ride to Walt Disney World as a teenager, I decided it was high time for another bus adventure. This time, a mere fifteen-hour trip to Colorado Springs for Easter would have to do.

During the first leg of the trip from Cowtown to Amarillo, I sat next to a guy who was heading to Amarillo to pick up a semi, so he slept most of the way. That gave me plenty of opportunities to watch the bus driver chew a wooden coffee stirrer. Seriously, he chewed the thing for close to six hours. The only other things competing for my attention were the various coughs from half of the passengers and the numerous smells--burning trash, a skunk that had sprayed, someone's overuse of Vick's VapoRub and hand sanitizer, and cigarette smoke lingering on passengers as they reboarded the bus at each stop. The passengers seemed very tame in comparison to those I had ridden with to Florida.

But then there was the return trip.

For whatever reason, the Amarillo bus station seems to be quite the melting pot. So during my hour layover, I watched as people lived out their stories around me.

The woman who talked to herself.

The young woman who sang and danced as if no one was watching. She wasn't afraid to tell everyone that she had been a ward of the State of Oregon when she was younger and that her brain didn't make serotonin.

But the one that seemed to capture everyone's attention was the eighteen-year-old boy who looked like he was about twelve and who made it known that he talked a lot because he was bipolar. He said his parents were deceased and that he was tired of dealing with people in New Mexico. He wanted to come to Texas to see "some shootings." Due to his apparent inability to filter the words that were coming out of his mouth, I was concerned that he was going to say some things that might draw some fire--as in gunfire--from some other people who were riding the bus.

But thankfully, a middle-aged gentleman with a Bible in one hand and a jacket in the other boarded the bus with the boy. The boy said that the gentleman went to his church and had helped him a lot. That gentleman sat next to the boy on the bus and allowed him to talk incessantly. And when the gentleman got off in Wichita Falls, he didn't get in the waiting taxi until he had given the boy some money and a hug.

Sights like that paint a picture of earthly angels. And yet, my drama-free bus trip makes me think maybe there were other such earthly angels on board who were less obvious.

Getting my luggage in Colorado (a/k/a proof that I took the bus)

So for those who were looking for a highly dramatic story, I'm thankful that I don't have one to tell. Just a simple trip filled with good times. And some unexpected surprises along the way . . .

Preface

Before I recap the bus trip I took during my time off, I feel it's necessary to set the stage. So here's a piece I wrote a while back for my writer's group: Greyhound Goes to Disney World.

All teenagers go through phases, and during the summer of 1988, I happened to be going through my no-flying phase; I refused to fly on airplanes because of a bad flight I had endured on a previous vacation.

Unfortunately, the timing of this phase could not have come at a worse time. That summer, my family decided to take a trip to Walt Disney World in Florida; it was to be our first “real” vacation involving a stay at a hotel.

After leaving me behind on several other family vacations that involved flying, my family decided that summer that they would do whatever it took to get me to Disney World. My mom has a bit of a driving phobia, so driving to Florida was not an option. We researched taking the train and quickly concluded that was not an option because it took over three days to travel each way. The only other option was taking the bus. And so we did, not knowing how adventurous the trip would be.

My mom, sister, and I boarded the bus in our small town for our first big stop in Houston. We quickly saw that a different class of passengers awaited us. We tried to avoid the prison and mental hospital escapees who seemed to abound at the Houston bus station. They were easy to spot because they were still wearing their jumpsuits or gowns and wristbands. But, as much as we tried to avoid the weird people, I ended up sitting next to some pretty scary people. And the ones I didn’t sit next to still made their presence known.

In the middle of the night, we were awakened in Mobile, Alabama, during a driver change. The first replacement driver who stepped on the bus received an update from the outgoing driver--something about a guy who was high on drugs who had locked himself in the bathroom and would not come out during the ticket check. The replacement driver quickly disappeared. We then waited for hours for another replacement driver and for the police to arrive and drag the armed man out of the bathroom and off the bus, while we all sat in our seats. I don’t think that we slept the rest of the night because of how scared we had been.

On the way back from Disney World, the “clientele” seemed to improve, but we still did not sleep. We had an evangelist sitting behind us who preached all night to a non-English-speaking Vietnamese man. And the air conditioning vents leaked a mysterious red, sticky substance that was later determined to be Kool-Aid.

Somehow, despite all of this, the bus adventure of 1988 did not usher me out of my non-flying phase. Instead, that phase raged on for many years and outlasted my family’s desire to accommodate it. With the bus adventure of 1988 firmly imprinted in my mother’s and my sister’s memories, they couldn’t quite bring themselves to risk their lives on another vacation by bus just for me.
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And here's a glimpse of what's to come:

A Time To Reflect

This evening, as I sat down to write what I wanted to write, I sensed a nudge urging me to take a break from blogging and to focus some time reflecting on the events of holy week. So have a wonderful Easter, and I'll see you back in the blogosphere next week.

Blog Tour - Sticks and Stones

A box labeled "Cards Worth Saving" sits on my shelf. A folder of emails entitled "Worth Keeping" overwhelms my email storage space. Why? Because good words are worth reading again and again.

Ace Collins knows this well. He's the author of the new book Sticks and Stones: Using Your Words as a Positive Force.

I greatly appreciated the practical examples in the book of what to say when you don't feel like you have the words, such as in a tragic situation involving a friend or a relative. The book also emphasizes the importance of writing down experiences in journals and labeling photographs because neither of these two forms of memories will require future generations to acquire an antiquated electronic device in order to review them. And throughout the book, you will find entertaining and motivating stories of how words have encouraged others over the years.

This little book provides help beyond its size with all forms of communication, so I know I'll be referring back to it often. Check it out for yourself.

To read more about Ace Collins, please check out his website. And to find out what others have to say about this helpful book, click here to see a list of bloggers participating in the tour.

[Disclosure: I received this book for free as part of the blog tour.]

Love & Art

Yesterday, I viewed The Kimbell's new exhibit Love & Art in Renaissance Italy. It wasn't the typical exhibit with just paintings. Instead, the collection included works of art that were given to commemorate special life events. Rather than landscape paintings, the collection opened with portraits of different brides and grooms. In addition to the portraits, other objects of art, like wedding chests, were given as dowries. But among the most ornate in the collection were the trays and bowls that were given to commemorate births. Whole scenes from the Bible might be depicted in the bottom of a bowl. And the colors were breathtaking in spite of being painted in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

This idea of color brightening our lives, and making our greatest life moments even greater, stuck with me. Not being an artist, I thought about how I could add some more color to my life. Immediately, the idea of flowers came to mind.

When I used to watch Three's Company, I often wanted to be a florist like Janet. One trip to a local florist's shop, and I fell in love with the smell of chilled roses that wafted out each time I opened the door to the upright cooler storing the arrangements. But with zero classes on flower arranging offered at school and instead days upon days of practicing math and writing, my florist dreams vanished.

Until this Saturday afternoon.

I stopped by the local flower market and picked up a Texas dozen (make that 15) "cherry brandy" roses, complete with lots of leaves and thorns and some withered petals, all of which needed to be removed. I remembered a simple arrangement that I had seen made at a flower show last spring and decided to mimic it, though technically the bouquet is supposed to be sticking at a weirder angle in the vase than I saw fit to lean it.

Voila! Instant color for my kitchen and den.

But the fun didn't stop there. I had been wanting to try a recipe I found at Christmas for red velvet whoopie pies. So I made them this afternoon for my writers' group. Although I think the original chocolate whoopie pies are better, this is a fun take on an old favorite.


So go on and have yourself a little fun with color!

Incognito

Let me preface this post by stating that I am not a Metallica fan, but this article about a stunt that they pulled intrigues me as a music lover and a writer. In a nutshell, Metallica showed up at the South By Southwest Music Festival in Austin last week to play at Stubb's BBQ under the guise that they were "a young band from Norway" that was trying to get a record deal, just like all the other bands at the festival. The only "problem"? Word leaked out about their secret performance, and fans stood in line for hours to get into the intimate venue to see a band that normally fills stadiums when it goes on tour.

The music fan in me loved this because I've often wished that I could still see some of my favorite artists who have made it big play at a smaller venue. Gone are the days of seeing Pat Green at Gruene Hall and the Nat Ballroom, so are the days of seeing Sarah McLachlan at Austin Music Hall. I wish that SXSW would lure famous musicians back to play at such intimate venues, allowing fans a chance to the experience the music up close sans the JumboTron.

The writer in me connected with the incognito part. I'm nowhere near famous, but I've noticed a change in my writing since I started posting on here with my name. When I posted as Bluebonnet In The Snow (BITS), it felt like the moniker alone provided some type of protection that allowed me to be vulnerable. The reader had to make the additional connection that BITS = Alyssa before attributing the words to me. An extra layer of insulation existed between me and the outside world. But once I started posting as myself, I seemed to shut down somewhat. Yet, I still strive for authenticity, even when it might be embarrassing. So writing incognito is a thing of the past. At least on this blog.

Guest Posting

Today, I'm posting on worship (not the starstruck-American Idol type) over at Morning Coffee with Renae today, so visit me there.