Things you notice when you're bored

July 26-30 - Bus stations

This journal is supposed to be about the places I go, not the way I get there. Obviously this is an artificial distinction. Getting there is almost half the journey, if you don't count getting back. But I find myself comparing the Greyhounding experiences from town to town.

I started out last week opining how San Antonio's bus station is a police state and El Paso's is a model of customer service. Not being a bus travel aficionado, I'd assumed at that point that I had pretty much run the gamut, from good to bad, in the taste bus stations come in. But nope, there's a Baskin Robbins of bus stations out there in America. Let me give you the scoop. Ha ha, see what I did there?

Well, if San Antonio is 1984 and El Paso is big welcome hug, Phoenix's bus station seemed like a post-apocalyptic nightmare. Refugees scattered about the floor, sleeping, looking befuddled, starving in the night. A few of them were clearly contemplating cannibalism if it came down to survival—perhaps sizing up the old, perhaps sizing up the young. Bands of aggressive youths cruised through like sharks scouring for prey. Officials barked orders at lines of passengers, rearranging them like baggage.

El Paso, with people smiling and offering to watch one another's children when their youngest needed to be taken to the restroom, was a distant memory. In Phoenix moms snapped "Just hold it till you're on the bus" at their bouncing toddlers and clutched their check on baggage in fear. Instead of San Antonio's blaring big brother TVs, all the sets in Phoenix were locked down and broken. No one had gotten around to starting a fire in one yet, but this was the next logical step before people started ripping up the metal benches and sharpening the armrests into shivs.

It was a relief at last to come to Los Angeles. The entertainment capital's bus station was all business, slick, and corporate. It was El Paso without the charm. Customers were serviced without the inefficiency of camaraderie. When my bus was reported running 30 minutes late, the ticket counter lady offered me free food voucher. Her smile was all business, unintrusive. The ubiquitous American TVs were there, but didn't dominate the room. There was plenty of room for thinking, reading, or talking small with a stranger. A conversation ran philosophical and the mom from San Diego was willing to follow along. When she turned the question around and asked me what I thought it meant to be an American, I could only think of positive things to say.

Fresno was an abandoned building, a desolate, hopeless, pre-industrial abandoned building. God help you if you ever get to Fresno.