Cross-Sections

One of the things that I’ve discovered in my travels is that I like cross-sections. I don’t like to limit myself to social categories (hence the whole truck driving arts student thing). I highly value diversity and I reckon, if you’re open to it, observing (or even better participating in) the different ways that people lead their lives can be one of the best things that you can do. By nature, it’s not always going to be comfortable, but I think that’s part of learning. For the most part I’ve found my experience to be incredibly liberating.

What I described above is figurative. I’ve also cut some more literal slices throughout my journey: the 2000 mile path we followed on harvest from Northern Texas to central Saskatchewan, and the 3000 mile road trip from Ohio in the East to Vancouver on the West coast. The change in geography, the people, politics, (everything!) is fascinating. The thing I love about the US is that you could shift your route 100 miles to the East, West, North or South (or perhaps do it diagonally!) and you’d have a completely different experience.

I got thinking bout the whole cross-section thing at the end of my first full day in New York. I walked from my hostel which was on the Upper West side of Manhattan down to the southern tip of the island in the Financial District. As the crow flies it’s about twelve kms but it took me a good twelve hours. At the end of the day I took the Subway back to the hostel and flicked through my photos as I rode. As I did, I realised how distinctive each of the districts were that I’d passed through. It also dawned on me that I had journeyed another cross-section.

Pictures from my walk will provide some content for my next post!

hustlers

Last time I stepped off a Greyhound in New York City a guy came out of nowhere and grabbed my bags just as I was about to pick them up off the side walk. “Where you headed sir?”. As soon as it happened I knew that I was going to be fleeced. Before I could say ‘Boston’, the guy had taken off into the terminal with my backpack. As I followed him, I desperately scanned for a Greyhound insignia on his clothing. Nothing. He was just some Average Joe hustling for cash. Sure enough, he didn’t put my bag down at the connecting gate until I’d slipped some Greenbacks into his free hand.

I’d just stepped off the bus with the wet seat and the purple perm lady. My friend Joel and I were changing buses in New York for Boston where we’d spend a few days before return for a week in NYC. It was four in the morning, I was unwell and I was groggy from a crappy sleep. Basically I didn’t have any fight in me.

This time around, I arrived in very similar circumstances, on a packed bus in the early hours of the morning, however this time I came from Philadelphia and, thankfully, my seat was dry. Sure enough, the hustlers were waiting for me when I stepped off the bus, a pack of them this time. No one had time to pick up my bag. I dummied, giving no indication of ownership until the last second, which made the protective lunge at my backpack look a bit over the top.

As I walked away I saw the not-so-lucky-ones being escorted away and held ransom. I walked through the terminal and onto an escalator which spat me straight on to 34th St which is in the heart of tourist New York, near the Empire State Building and Times Square.

As I hit the street I had the same feeling that I always have when I arrive in New York City. It’s like I’m inwardly beaming, almost to the point of not being able to contain it. There’s an urge to stop, look up and stare at the skyscrapers, yet I’m always aware of not being too obvious.

The hangover from the red-eye Greyhound always disappears immediately. Interestingly, on each of the three occasions that I have arrived in New York by bus, it has been on a red-eye. Each time, I have been asleep when the bus arrives which has created the surreal scenario by which most of my initial encounters with the city have been in an underground concrete parking lot. The upside of this scenario is the big entrance that you make when you get to the top of the escalator; you’re suddenly in the heart of the place but you have no recollection of actually arriving there.

Anyway, slightly pumped up by my evasion of the hustlers, I felt like I was on a roll and I wasn’t going to let some dodgy cabbie drive me around town a few times before dropping me at my hostel (completely irrational). I saddled up and walked up 6th Ave to Times Square and into the Subway.

More Awkward Moments on Public Transport

On the train from New York City back to Cleveland Ohio. This guy literally slept (in various encroaching positions) for twelve hours straight, from when he got on - somewhere in New York State - until when I clambered over him to get off in Cleveland.

update

Pics: 1. Leaving Kiowa bound for Ohio (Pauly's hat on the dash).

2. Chuck out the front of the World's largest truck stop (the I80 in Walcott Iowa)

I've had a bit of a break from the blog. I was craving a bit of anonymity after harvest. Toward the end it kept hitting me that I was in someone's company pretty much every waking minute (or at least within ear's shot). We'd get up, pile in a truck, stop at the servo for a coffee and something unhealthy, head to the field and then sit in our respective machines talking to each other all day on the two-way before heading back to the camper in the evening.

It's been a busy and eventful few weeks. We got back to Kiowa on the 28th of November. I was on a real high but very much knew that harvest had run its course. Despite the fact that the homeward journey had stirred up some nostalgia, I had also, for a long time, been looking forward to the next phase of my trip, New York City.

I'd looked into flights, the train and the Greyhound but it dawned on me that I could hitch a ride with Pauly to his hometown in Ohio, which would get me three quarters of way there.

I also mentioned to Pauly that I might be in the market for a small four wheel drive to take to Vancouver and the snow once finished on the East coast. His reply was, "Yeah, no problem. We'll find you a little truck". By 'truck' he meant pick-up truck and, as soon as he uttered those words, a little boy's pipe dream was born. I didn't care how impractical it was, I wanted to own a pick-up and I wanted to drive it trans-America. Little did I know that a week down the track I'd meet Chuck. More on that later.

Pauly, outnumbered nine to one for seven months, was keen to interact with Americans again, and most of all his family, so we left for Ohio the morning after we got back to Kiowa. Turns out that Pauly was pretty bloody keen to get home...we drove a mammoth 1,100 miles (1,800km); 18 hours across Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and then finally into Ohio. I stayed at Pauly's place for five days. Most of the time was spent looking for Chuck and also visiting several of Paul's relatives who were all really pleased to see him after such a long absence.

Chuck. He's named after a certain cult martial arts expert of Walker Texas Ranger fame. The reason being he's a '93 Ford Ranger...Ideally I'd have him carrying Texas plates, but it wasn't to be. Anyway, just like the guy he's named after, he kicks arse. Dan was hitting me up to hang the chrome balls of his bumper. I told my Mum about the idea and her reply was something along the lines of "James you won't be turning up to a family Christmas (in Vancouver) with testicles hanging off your car". I got some key ring sized chrome balls instead.

Anyway, the Chuck purchase was a risk. Everything looked good on paper but with a vehicle that old you never know what's going to happen a few miles down the road. I have to say, the risk felt good. I've been super cautious in the past which has its advantages but it can be stifling as well. One thing that I've learned from the past 18 months is that every major (and sometimes very painful) hurdle that life has thrown my way, has ultimately resulted in a strengthening, often exciting, and ultimately good outcome. Wow, I've gone from Martial Arts cars to life lessons in the space of a paragraph.

I left Chuck with Pauly and his mate Justin to sort out rego etc and I finally made it to New York. I would return two weeks later to start my 3000 mile-5000km Westbound journey and it certainly provided some adventures.

The Road to New York

I’ve always got my money’s worth from Greyhound. It’s generally the cheapest way to get around the states and, for this reason, you’re inevitably going to come across some characters.

Last time I was in the US, in 2004, I boarded a bus in Las Vegas for a 16 hour journey to Denver, Colorado. I sat across the aisle from a guy who had lost everything he owned in the course of a week long bender on the strip. He left Vegas with his bus ticket and a few spare dollars in his pocket. I was expecting him to ask me for money after telling me his story. He didn’t.

This time around, I boarded the first of four buses in Wooster Ohio, bound for New York via Pittsburgh Pennsylvania and Baltimore Maryland. On my bus were about half a dozen Amish people. They got dropped at the bus station in several horse-drawn buggies (for real!). They all dressed in black. The guys wore slacks with braces, white shirts and thick woollen capes. A few of the men were smoking pipes before we boarded. The women were dressed in ankle-length dresses, similar capes, and bonnets. They spoke in what sounded to be like a German dialect.

I’m not sure how their Greyhound trip fit in with their beliefs about technology. I was hoping to strike up a conversation with one of them, but it didn’t happen. Apparently communities are strongly concentrated in north-eastern Ohio (whish is where Wooster is)…perhaps they were going to visit another community?

I left the Amish in Akron Ohio and boarded a bus for Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. We arrived in Pittsburgh early in the afternoon in time to get a nice view of the city. It looked pretty cool. Very industrial and kind of gritty looking, but not ugly. It appeared to be fairly densely populated, with many terrace style houses crammed onto steep embankments that ran up from the banks of the Allegheny and Monogahela Rivers which converge in Pittsburgh to form the Ohio River river. We had a 20 minute driver change, enough time to get a coffee from a nearby office building.

As well as the characters, the no-frills ethos of the Greyhound usually provides an air of adventure…often along the lines of “it was a rough ride but I made it in the end”. In 2004 I boarded a bus bound for New York at a particularly rough terminal in Washington DC. It was about midnight and I remember that I was feeling pretty under the weather. I was the last one through the metal detector set up at the boarding gate. The bus was full, there were two seats left down the back of the bus when I got on. One was soaking wet and the other was occupied by a huge suitcase belonging to an equally huge Latino lady. When I saw the suitcase and the lady I was almost resigned to the fact that I’d be travelling in the wet seat. With a clumsy half-hearted argument and a look of desperation, I plead my case. She responded with a few gruff words in Spanish and a flick of the hand. I remember being very angry at the world.

This year’s Greyhound adventure sprung out of the Pittsburgh-Baltimore leg. Basically the bus got lost. The driver missed his exit on the Baltimore beltroad, taking us on an hour long circumnavigation of the city. I missed my connection and the last bus to New York out of Baltimore and was redirected to Philadelphia. By this stage it was about one in the morning.

During winter, bus stations are a popular refuge for the homeless as well as the odd larrikin on his way home from the bar. The Philadelphia bus terminal had employed a security guard to move such characters along. The guy would do the rounds every fifteen minutes asking to see people’s tickets. Apparently he wasn’t all that good with faces because he’d hit me up every time. It started to piss me off. On his third time around I told him that, yep, my plan was still to get on the bus to New York.

The liveliest customer at the station that night was an elderly black guy who must have been in his 80s. He looked like a retired R&B artist, sporting a lot of bling and some big sunglasses. Each time the security guard asked him for his ticket, he’d say he was still looking for it. In between time he’d shuffle around with his cane asking people for money and swearing at them when they refused. Eventually he picked a fight with a cleaner and started following around, wielding his cane. The cleaner was fairly calm initially but got more and more aggravated. Eventually he confronted the old man, “stop hiding behind your cane fool”. The old guy responded by throwing his cane on the ground and raising his fists, “Come on man. I don’t need no cane. I’m gunna whip your ass”. This was enough to have him removed by the police. As the cleaner walked away he shook his head and muttered, “This is the shit I gotta put up with every night”.

The bus for New York finally arrived. There was a heart stopping moment when the station manager told us that the inbound bus was quite full and there was a chance we all would not get on. We just fit. I boarded and was inspired to write a post about The Greyhound. Tapping away under dim light, ipod in to dampen the sound of snoring, the lady sitting behind me tapped me on the shoulder. I took an ear out. “Are you a suicide bomber?”, she asked, deadly serious. “Ahhh, no”. “OK, it’s just I thought you were writing a suicide note before you blew us all up”.

I rolled into New York at four thirty in the morning, 17 hours after I left Wooster, two and a half hours behind schedule but with another US city under my belt and a few more stories to tell.