Friday 24 Feb 06

As i said, the trip was uneventful...until we got to Columbia, South Carolina. just a few miles short of that bus station, my fellow travellers in the back of the bus alerted the driver that it was filling with smoke! we pull off to the side of I-77 and all get out. a S.C. Dept. of Transportation employee pulls up within minutes. the driver gets a fire extinguisher and sprays it on something in the engine, and also between the rear set of tires. more pickup trucks trucks show up. a fire engine comes out. taxis come out and take a few passengers off to their final destination, but one guy i'm talking to lives in Columbia but can't afford a 7-mile taxi trip: he just the day before got out of Virginia jail. we wait by the side of the road for 2 hours!

finally a loaner bus arrives just to take us into Columbia, but there we have to wait for another greyhound bus to come from Charlotte, N.C., to replace ours. it finally gets there and we leave Columbia 4 hours late. about 15 of us have missed all our connecting buses. my schedule is in ruins. i was supposed to change buses in Jacksonville, Florida, at 530pm, but that bus was long gone by the time we got there at 845pm. not too long a wait, however, the next bus leaves at 915pm.

unfortunately, greyhound no longer runs a west coast route and an east coast route; all Florida buses now go thru Jacksonville to Orlando to all points south. so now the nice straight 4-hour trip from Jacksonville to Ft. Pierce on I-95 "Alligator Alley" is a thing of the past, Orlando is 'way out of the way. where once my schedule had hour-long layovers in Walterboro, Jacksonville, and Orlando, now all 3 are reduced to 1/2-hours. i spent the layover at the Walterboro McDonald's to get something to eat, so i didn't get a smoke, and i hardly had enough time for a bathroom break and a smoke at either Jacksonville or Orlando. we get on the 1215am bus out of Orlando instead of the original 1030pm bus, and i get in to Ft. Pierce just a little before 3am, 2-1/2 hours late! my father not being a night person, asking him to stay up that late to come get me is a big thing! (my mother is better at staying up late.)