Megabus - Part II

We continue our story about our Megabus Adventure aka as "how a city girl finds himself on a big charter bus driving through the outlands of the United States."


To catch the first part of the Adventure check HERE

As you recall, our heroine (that would be me) had arrived at the appointed location outside Chicago's Union Station to find The Megabus and had already scoped out the perfect seat.


When people would ask me what I was doing for the weekend I would say "I'm taking the bus to Cleveland." At first I would get a blank stare which turned into a quizzical look and then morphed into laughter. Invariably, the next question out of their mouths was - "WHY?"

Well, why not!

Andi and I had been talking about Megabus for quite sometime and I had been quite intrigued about the whole concept of a bus ride that only costs $1.00 (+ $0.50 transaction fee) and I wanted to see what it was all about.

I really wasn’t too concerned about the bus….Megabus is owned by a British company and I was going to see my British friend and the British have always treated us American’s well, so I figured I had nothing to worry about….hmmmmm……maybe they’ll serve tea and biscuits?

The thing I was more concerned about was, well how do I put this gently……..my fellow passengers, I mean come on…it’s a $1.50 to go halfway across the country, who else (besides me) buys a dollar bus tickets?

While we were standing on the sidewalk (uhm, that's why the ticket was only a dollar), I looked at all the people standing with me, it hadn't hit me until then, but what if someone was actually going to sit next to me. I hadn’t really thought that there might be someone sitting next to me, well I guess I had thought a little bit about it but it involved this hot frat boy that was going to Cleveland to see his girlfriend and got a call halfway through the ride from his girlfriend telling him that she was breaking up with him and he needed a shoulder to cry on.....ok, back on track, I mean other than that I really hadn’t seriously thought that I would have to share THAT much space with someone else for 6 hours.

Fortunately, we were only at about ½ capacity, I think there were only 4 people that sat together and that was because they were traveling together, everyone else on the bus got to have two seats all to themselves.

Once I got settled I got my travel things in order: a book, a Sudoku book that The Boyfriend bought for me, some trail mix and my bottle of…..wait, where’s my water? Didn’t I buy a bottle of water? Oh fuck…I forgot to buy a bottle of water…..there is no way in hell I’m drinking the water in the bathroom – I’ve seen Dateline, thank you very much! Shit, I remembered everything except a bottle of water, I hope I didn’t get thirsty on the way, well at least now I wouldn’t have to worry about using the onboard facilities.

The seats were very comfortable, there was even a foot rest, which was amazing, why don’t they put foot rests on airplanes….oh they do, it’s called Business Class International Air Travel. I got everything settled and was ready to begin the adventure, but I still had my Xanax at close hand just in case things became too unbearable to handle.

Before I knew it the bus was pulling out and joining the Friday afternoon rush to get out of the city.

There was one big advantage to riding in a bus that I hadn't thought about - truckdrivers!