Worst. Greyhound. Trip. Ever? (The Itinerary)

I recently booked a last-minute red eye to New York City, and I am not looking forward to it. My procrastination earned me the middle seat in the last row of the plane. Of course my immediate reaction was a self-pitying “Geez, could it be any worse?” And then, I thought, yes, by God, it could be a lot worse.

Seattle to Portland, ME, by Greyhound
Imagine that you try to book the four-hour trip to visit your favorite Rose City vegan scone shop, but accidentally choose the wrong option on Greyhound’s dropdown box. Instead, you’ve booked a four-day adventure.

Monday: Board a Greyhound bus at 10:40 a.m. A mere seven stops later (or about at many stops as Capitol Hill’s #10-bus makes every two blocks) you’re changing buses! Of course, it is now 10:25 p.m. You’ve got 45 minutes to enjoy the wonders of the Missoula bus terminal before your 11:15 leaves for an overnight trip to Billings.

Tuesday: Wakey! At 6:00 a.m. you’re off the bus. And still, somehow, in Montana. Step lively, because you’ve got just 15 minutes before your bus heads out toward the sunrise. Denver is your destination, but before your arrive you’ll get short rest stops in the hustly-bustly Wyoming towns of Thermopolis, Casper, and Cheyenne. At 6 p.m. you make Denver, and soon board a new bus. Pick your seat (and neighbor) wisely, as this bus is yours for the next 44 hours.

Wednesday: You’ll arrive in Kansas City, Missouri, at 6:45, with an hour and fifteen minutes to stretch your legs and maybe book a hotel for a shower–it’s been two days. Hopefully you were sleeping and didn’t notice, but you had two long-ish stops overnight: 20 minutes in Colby, Kansas, and 30 in Salina. Get used to this herky-jerky traveling–over the next day and a half of traveling through the Midwest you’ll stop 10 times, for as little as 5 and as long as 80 minutes. Total travel time lost due to the inefficiencies of national bus scheduling? Five hours and five minutes.

Thursday: If you’ve arisen at a normal hour, you’ve missed Pittsburgh! (Okay, okay, you wouldn’t say you really missed it.) You left the Steel City at 5 a.m., on your way for a morning-long drive through Pennsylvania. You’ll get 35 minutes for lunch in Philadelphia, and make New York City in early afternoon–with a 2 hour and 30 minute layover, plenty of time to hit up one of of the several NYC-style delis around the Port Authority Bus Terminal. (Do not under any circumstances eat inside the Port Authority Bus Terminal). Reboard at 5:30 p.m. for the thrill of puttering up I-95 to Boston in rush-hour traffic–a seven-hour ordeal for a trip that’s not much longer than Seattle-Portland, Oregon.

Friday: When the sun rises you’ll have spent five hours at South Station, Boston’s relatively nice bus terminal. At 6 a.m., you board a bus for the final leg of your trip–two hours up the Atlantic coast to Portland, Maine. We did it! And now that red eye doesn’t feel so terrible.