"We haven't had any terrorism on the buses yet. But it's coming."

Thus began my first Greyhound bus experience in over five years. Two days earlier I'd moved almost all my stuff to my Mom's barn in Virginia. She's being generous enough to provide me with a few corners in her newly renovated barn to house my worldly possessions for a while.

It was funny how everything I owned occupied such a tiny part of the building. You could hardly notice we'd moved everything in. Also funny was when Mom asked how much I figured all my stuff was worth, since she was re-figuung the insurance she carried on the barn. After thinking for a minute I responded, "About $500."

Speaking of Mom's generosity... I've been depending more and more on the generosity of others lately. From Bill, Pete, Mark and my replacement Mina's willingness to give me rides to and from work, to Stephanie's offering the use of her car, to Mark's invaluable help in loading my moving van... I owe these folks more than I can repay. They're probably counting down the days to my departure as anxiously as I am.

"The glint of well-shined chrome catches my eye."
But back to the moving. Saturday morning we go to unload my jam-packed Ryder truck. Mom unlocks the barn and proceeds to open the big truck-sized doors. The glint of well-shined chrome catches my eye. There's something fairly large, two-wheeled and motorized partly hidden under a blanket. Mom removes the blanket and confirms what I suspected. She's bought a Harley.

At this point she's just bought the Harley. The learning to ride the Harley comes later, but I think it's very cool. I wish I'd known how to ride a motorcycle so we could've ridden over the weekend. But we settled with revving the engine the way people do at traffic lights.

"I nearly missed the bus..."
So about that non-terroristic Greyhound ride. I'd only been on one Greyhound bus in my life when I was headed to the beginning of the Appalachian Trail... and that was over five years ago. I had no idea how the system worked. I nearly missed the bus because I waited to buy a ticked from the driver rather than going inside to the desk. (In my defense I'd been told the desk was closed.) Then when I finally got on it was packed. There were empty seats, but people had thrown their bags in them, so I had to make a guy move his stuff so I could sit down. And it was raining, so I figured the thing was gonna smell like a zoo.

But overall it was a very pleasant ride, if a little overpriced at $40. The people were nice and fresh-smelling enough. I didn't get much sleep, but we arrived on time at 12:30am, safe from bombings and bio attacks of any kind.