O, Sweet Bus trips...

After starting a bus ride on Wednesday afternoon i have now arrived in Modesto California!
My sister is definitely ready to have a baby any day now, but he knew to wait until his Auntie ruth was around to appear.
I was dropped off at the bus depot in Sioux City on Wednesday in the early afternoon and bought my tickets (thanks again for the ride...and for pointing out the art center that was near by). I willingly waited the couple more hours for the bus at the Art center about a block away...i could not have wanted a better place to wait for the bus.
The bus ride was full of fascinating people (some were really hilarious). It is amazing what a few days (and for some a week) of travel can do to people. To make this shorter i will give a list of some highlights:
*a half a day of no air conditioning
*the life story of 15 people
*a bus that shuts the engine off periodically from Denver, Colorado to Salt Lake City, Utah (i lost count at 13 times) a guy with great leadership skills (though he could have lead in more positive directions) who got half the bus blaming the bus driver for the traffic and for the bus breaking down...which of course lead the way for a very sarcastic bus driver as we rode on; who would periodically throw up his hands and say "that was it, he was going to call for a new bus and driver"....and the hilarious theatrical lasted for at least 5 hours!
*A guy who can talk about his cell phone for 2 1/2 hours (really i did not know there was so much one could say about a cell phone)
*and of course the token male who wanted to impress me by crushing a can with his bear hands...
*an accident that blocked the pass we were on through the Rockies so that the bus turned around after waiting more than an hour, we took a detour that lasted 3 hours longer. As we passed by Lake Tahoe and all the resorts and golf courses there was a lot of jeering at the people who would spend time and money in such a place like that for such a cost, all the while knowing what was really meant was that each person was wishing that was them instead of the circumstances that lead them to be on that bus at that time. (my mind probably pondered this fact more deeply as i read my book that was talking, in the chapter i was on, about how the rich spend ...)

Other than that i had a lot of sleep and almost finished my book (about fifty pages short). Riding the bus was more amusing than i remembered it being. i must give Kudos to the dude that sat next to me one of the nights. He had gotten so fed up with the cramped sleeping situations in the seats he climbed up into the open overhead luggage compartments and spread out up there for more than a couple of hours...ingenious! i just wish he had woken me up so i knew i could spread out on the seats too instead of having my bag under my feet hugging the window at my side trying not to roll over on the man who was NOT beside me!

I look forward to this time with my family. Thanks for your prayers as i traveled here to California!