The American Travel Nightmare

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: it is exceedingly difficult to travel in America.

Don’t get me wrong: this is a beautiful country, with wide vistas and plenty of one of a kind sights to see and, along the way, there are wonderful people to meet, greet and talk with.

The problem is that you really have to work at traveling, in America.

Unless you are on either coast, there are no trains to speak of. America being a car culture, one might think that that is not so bad; after all, who wants to stop at railroad crossings all the time?

And there is really only one long-distance bus service: Greyhound. I’ve written about them before, generally in flattering tones.

You won’t get that in this essay. More on that later.

The great shame of the American traveling system is that it is only a point-to-point system that permits you to see nothing along the way, unless you drive there.

You can visit any tourist attraction – say, Branson, in Missouri. You can get there by car – from wherever you start out at, or you can fly in and rent a car.

You can also take a bus but, generally speaking, those who ride buses aren’t looking for fun times at the end of their journey.

In fact, the average American does not ride Greyhound. This is a service generally meant for poor travelers, those who wear their desperation as a physical stink or as an umbra of hopelessness, or both.

I don’t consider myself poor or hopeless; merely economical. And longing for travel opportunities available in such countries as China, Japan, and all over Europe: trains galore!

I can wish all I want but the fact remains that, unless I want to fly everywhere I go in the states, I am compelled to take the bus.

Taking the bus from Fort Worth to Jacksonville, N.C., my next port of call (as it were), went fairly well, even though the bus out of Fort Worth was late, risking my Dallas connection.

Fortunately, the early bus out of Ft. Worth was late also, but just in time for me, and that driver kindly allowed me on, putting me in Dallas just in time for the announcement that the bus out of Dallas would also be late.

On my last Greyhound foray I expounded on the fact that this bus system is a marvel of inefficiency; I just didn’t write about it because... how often do you need to hear how bad this service is?

You’ll hear about it this time because this one is a doozy. 

I’d been in North Carolina for a few weeks and, bearing in mind my departure overseas was imminent, scheduled a fare out of Jacksonville for the Thursday the so-called storm of the century was due to hit.

Ever mindful of the ominous radar images, I pondered whether I should rebook my passage. My daughter suggested I plan to leave on Wednesday but I found myself unwilling to leave my family in the lurch – “great hurricane headed your way, see ya!” is not my style.

Greyhound took matters into its own hands by sending me an email saying my trip would be impacted by the storm, and that I should call customer service.

In conversation with them, I was informed that buses had been canceled for the two days leading up to the weather event, and it was uncertain when service would resume afterwards.

I couldn’t have left early if I had wanted to!

I tentatively reset my ticket for the Sunday after the storm, assured that I would still have time to visit with Marjorie in Pennsylvania – the next stop on my itinerary, before heading to New York to catch my flight out.

Going overseas, I understand having to fly. However, if I could, I would book passage on a freighter to get overseas.

Travel plans made, there was nothing left to do but ride out the storm, and it was a doozy.

We hurricane-proofed the house as best we could and then hunkered down.

The power went out at 8PM, Thursday night. All of our batteries were charged and we had already had dinner, so it was all good. I volunteered for first watch – we were going to sleep in shifts, in case things got so bad we had to flee our shelter. That meant that someone had to be awake at all times.

During my shift I wrote an article for my Superprof assignment, finishing it just as my computer’s battery was dying. At 2AM, I woke Jennifer up; it was her turn to watch.

It was a disquieting time, hearing branches hit the roof and the wind howl. Somehow, all but Jenn, we slept.

In the aftermath, it rained for days. Try to stay busy; try to find something to do: rake leaves out of the gutters so that they don’t dam the road up and cause flooding. Pick up and stack large branches out of the yard.

Have a competition: how many roof tiles can we find?

And so, we passed the time until Sunday, when I expected to travel.

With no connection to the outside world, we had no idea that the town was flooded. I had no idea that Greyhound had again canceled the bus, until I called them. They shifted my ticket to a Monday departure, still with no guarantee that there would actually be a bus.

By now, weary of the isolation, the humidity that set in after the massive rains and the demands of a bored 8-year-old, and ever mindful of my imminent departure from the country, I was rabid to leave.

Once again, Greyhound canceled the trip. This time, I asked if they had buses going out of Raleigh; they assured me they did. They would not refund my original ticket so I had to buy another ticket to depart out of the city located 70 miles from where my daughter’s family lives.

I didn’t simply take it upon myself to decide a trip out of Raleigh should happen. It was Jenn, with her unlimited data plan, who scoured the ‘Net to find me a trip.

And it was she who drove me to Raleigh, in defiance of her husband’s superior officer ordering all Marines and family members to stay on base.

We arrived at the bus depot in Raleigh with no problems: no flooding, no sinkholes, no backed up traffic and no devastation along the way.

In retrospect, I daresay that some of those storm damage reports were overdone, and so was the attitude in the aftermath of the storm.

Much to our surprise, the Raleigh station’s doors were sandbagged shut, the lights were off and there was a notice taped to the door: “In light of Florence...”

How could Greyhound sell tickets for buses out of a depot that wasn’t open for business?

I wasn’t the only angry passenger: there were about a dozen people, waving tickets and shouting in their phone.

I lost it. Poor sleep, days of inactivity and frustration, the urgent need to be elsewhere or forfeit my plane ticket out of the country... I broke down.

Jenn took charge, booking me into a hotel overnight and scoring a cheap plane ticket to Harrisburg the next day (she paid for one and I paid for the other; bless her!)

That night’s sleep in the hotel was not much better than in the stuffy, now moldy-smelling house I’d left my family in. Still, I was grateful for the internet connection; rebooking my flight for a week out and arranging for a place to stay once I made it to Poland.

That’s two stressors, knocked out of the way!

Visiting with Marjorie for 5 days, I had opportunity to talk with Greyhound about refunding the price of those two tickets, and here is where any esteem I had for that company evaporated.

First, they wanted me to call back the next day, ostensibly to verify that the bus I was scheduled to ride was, in fact, canceled.

When I refused that illogic – surely they know whether they’ve canceled a bus, don’t they?, the customer service clerk demanded ALL of my credit card information, to include the security code on the back of the card.

I am aware of the purpose of that code: it proves to online entities that I am in possession of that card; I didn’t just lift someone’s information off the face of their credit card for nefarious purposes.

I don’t mind that layer of security when I make online purchases but there is no need for a customer service agent to demand that code in order to process a refund.   

My next attempt to request a refund on both tickets was via email, which Greyhound never responded to.

I printed out the email, but not before I added a judicious summary of my attempts at redress so far. I had intended to mail that letter while still on American soil but did not get the chance.

I wonder if my missive will have more impact, coming from a foreign country? 

I am done riding Greyhound. If I ever return to America to visit, I will have to figure out a way to travel around them.