The Greyhound

As I mentioned last week, several of my girlfriends came in to town to celebrate the new baby with me. The six of us cleared our schedules and planned to spend some serious quality time together, talking, laughing, eating, watching What Not to Wear--you know, all the things girls are good at.

The weather did not cooperate (which we are used to, because we are from Nebraska).

Kathryn didn't want to chance the bad weather and rightfully stated that my offer to quickly learn Skype and video conference her in to the party would just not work. Her solution was to ride the Greyhound in to town. Some of us would not do this, but for those of you who don't know Kathryn, rest assured that this is just up her alley. She is a writer and can justify almost anything as material for her job. She also spent a semester living in a hostel in Ireland and on one side trip to Belfast KNOCKED ON THE DOOR OF AN ARMED TANK to ask their permission to take a picture. A woman who took pleasure trips to Northern Ireland in the 90s is not bothered by the Greyhound.

The getting here was not tough. In fact, the whole group got together for lunch on Saturday and I'm not sure we stopped talking and laughing until the wee hours of Sunday morning. That is my definition of a good time. Kathryn's bus left at 4:10 AM (!!!) and Joanna graciously offered to drop her off at the bus station. I got up with them at 3:30, hugged Kathryn goodbye and she distinctly said to me, "The next time I see you, you'll have a baby."

Um, yeah, right.

About 20 minutes after they left, my phone rang. I don't sleep well normally, and lately I've been even worse. I jumped out of bed and heard Kathryn's voice saying, "I mixed up the Greyhound and Amtrack. There's no bus station here." She and Joanna drove to where Joanna and I thought the bus station was, which has evidently been vacant for the last decade or two. (Not a great endorsement of my skills of observation.) At that point, I got the phone book out, read her the address in there and told them to go there. Which seemed very logical.

Until I kept calling random Greyhound numbers and found out that the address in the phone book was also NOT WHERE THE STATION WAS. I called Kathryn's cell to tell her the real address (in case you're counting, this is the 4th address we have for the $#%&^ bus station). They were about 3 miles west of the station with 10 minutes before the bus left. So I said what people say in situations like that:

You'd better drive fast. (It was 4:00AM on a Sunday. There wasn't much traffic.)

They got to the station at 4:08. About 4:09 they saw the sign that said something like...."Bus canceled due to weather conditions." See, the bad weather that had been forecast went completely around us, but everyone else got it. Despite the impressive drive around Lincoln that Joanna and Kathryn made, there was no bus to catch. They were back at my house by 4:30, we laughed about the turn of events and went back to bed. Once we all got up for the second time that day, I said my goodbyes the Kathryn again, went off to play hand bells in church (no errors from me, thank you very much), and came home, expecting to see my friends gone. Nope--still at my place. So we talked (even more) and I finally had to get ready for another baby shower. We said our goodbyes for the third time in 12 hours and I drove away. When I got home, Kathryn and Joanna were still there (Megan and Stacy had headed home Saturday night and Steph on Sunday at noon). They were tired, they were punchy, they were wondering if Greyhound would really get Kathryn home. Greyhound isn't really a shining example of customer service, so Kathryn spent a lot of the day waiting just to call them and check on the status of the afternoon bus.

By about 5 in the afternoon, Kathryn and Joanna left again. This time they took the direct route to the real bus station, so it was a pretty quick trip. BUT THERE WAS STILL NO BUS. Joanna ended up taking Kathryn to Omaha to catch the bus there and, if the rumors are correct, Kathryn finally made it home about 14 hours behind schedule. ( I haven't talked to her since our 4th goodbye last Sunday.)

I can't wait to read what Kathryn has to say about her trip.