People carrying their worldly possessions in potato sacks scrawled with Bible verses. People who sneak beers. People who yell until the driver gets on the intercom and threatens to leave them by the side of the road.
You meet runaways, all kinds of runaways. People running from parents, boyfriends, girlfriends, legal troubles, jobs, hometowns. Everyone sitting on uncomfortable seats breathing re-circulated air with no guarantee that the destination would be any better than the origin; but at least there was some kind of forward movement, some type of momentum. It was the year and I was eighteen. I had an Ameripass, which has since been discontinued.
Then I got on the bus, headed for Flagstaff, Arizona. So I would stay awake for 24 hours, 30 hours, 48 hours. I would listen to tapes on my cassette walkman until the batteries began to die and the music became slowed-down, droning, scary.
During the day, looking out the window was interesting and usually sort of fun, but at night, all I could see was the highway signs and the lit-up signs of chains.
Gas stations and fast foods. At night I became lonely. I missed everyone. I wished, desperately, that I could sleep. The hours stretched on for what felt like forever. On that first long ride to Flagstaff, the sun rose over the desert, after a long and terrible night. It was my first desert sunrise, and it blew me away. It made me feel, undoubtedly, that I was on the right path.
