Gator People Live in The River,1: The Knife

“I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move.” -Robert Louis Stevenson

“A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it.” – John Steinbeck

Traveling through the Harrison Street Greyhound Station has become old hat.

Chicago is one of the major intersections on the Greyhound Map. St. Louis, Dallas, and Nashville are a couple of the other ones. Nashville is a grungy, badly kept station, much in the same way that the station in Vegas is grungy and badly kept. Part of me thinks this is deliberate. In Vegas, of course, you're only at the Greyhound Station near the nostalgic Fremont Street experience because you lost. Vegas winners do not leave town via the bus; and any potential winners that roll in that way realize quickly it is no place worth returning to. In Nashville, it's entirely possible that they keep the station looking, feeling, and smelling like a set from a George Romero zombie flick because

1. they're hoping George Romero films a movie there; and


2. they're hoping some potential new Nashville pop star will write a song about it.

That's my theory, anyway. Don't get me wrong; there are plenty of terrible bus stations, and some nice ones, too. St. Louis is nice because it's new and because they police it in order to keep the riff raff (ME) from taking up semi-permanent residence.

The Harrison Street station is one of the nicer ones, too. The food isn't great and it costs too much. But that ought to be expected. On the other hand, the men's room is kept pretty clean and I have yet to walk into any back stall romantic embraces.

Mobile, Alabama. Yes. There is a certain smell to man on man intercourse that, try as I might, I will probably never erase from my sense memory. As a writer, I struggle even to try and describe it, in spite feeling guilty about subjecting you, my Dear Readers, to such knowledge. Lucky for you, I can't even muster the language.

The problem with the Harrison Street Station is that they have instituted TSA style bag searches prior to boarding... at least this has been the case the last couple times I've been through. I'm still unclear as to what the powers that be are thinking. If terrorists are going to blow something up, it's not going to be a bus full of poor people... not even to make a point. Because while a terrorist might posit that there is no such thing an innocence, any terrorist smart enough to put a bomb together knows enough to know that this government doesn't give a damn about the poor.

But this IS the Post-9/11 World, after all... which means that even if the terrorists -- whoever the hell they may be -- don't think the poor are dangerous, clearly the power mongers happen to.

And so, I had to once again consent to a search of my ruck and a wand sweep.

The problem was, though, I was technically carrying contraband -- my pocket knife. On my last trip outbound from Harrison Street, I didn't have a pocket knife. It's a nice one, too. A Christmas gift from my brother.

My brother is not one to go gushing about something as non-objective as feelings. This often leads some people who don't know better to believe that he doesn't have them. The knife, while it was something I had put on my amazon.com wish list, was something that probably only he would give me. We may not as close as some people suppose brothers ought to be, maybe, but we do understand one better than most people understand us.

Back when I was in the middle of a blood and guts divorce from The Kid's mother, my brother gave me watch. It was a simple one, with a clock face.

I prefer the quirky personality of a time piece to the cold and dispassionate visage of a digital hour marker. A regular clock face, with the steady sand sweeping second hand, helps me to remember that I am sweeping along, a tick at a time, that time is doing the same, and that we each move at our own individualized pace. A clock face also reminds me of the cyclic nature of time, of events, and that these hours will both perpetually return while at the same time never come back again. A digital clock makes me feel like I'm racing to the grave. Yes, I realize they both serve the same basic function. Dirt and a 20 ounce porterhouse steak can serve the same function, too. You can eat both and get full. But one is still preferable.

The pocket knife and the compass he gave me that year for Christmas -- the compass is too nice to travel with but a fine piece of craftsmanship I cherish -- were, on his part, a recognition of my impulse to move. Not just travel. Move. Movement unwinds the giant knot in me that in a way that coming up out of the water for air fill the lungs. Of the two, the knife is the most pragmatic and has been the most used. One of the first people I truly unloaded on about splitting with Melissa was my brother -- again, not because we sit around and talk about our emotions, but because, well, he's my brother. And having to deal with certain stupid family politics I have learned that while we don't talk often, it matters more that we are brothers than whether we are friends.

I was not going to give up the knife without a fight.

<

I also could not afford to bail myself out out a Chicago Jail.

The thought crossed my mind to hide in my rucksack. But they actually OPEN any bags that are not stored under the coach and I will not store my rucksack under the coach. That's how you end up in Lexington,Kentucky and your shit ends up in Detroit.

I didn't want to risk leaving it in my pocket for the metal wand to detect. Then I noticed that when another man took his ball cap off and put his wallet in it, the station security guard did not sweep his hat. Only the length of him from his armpits to his knees.

My oil-cloth travelling hat has a flap on the inside that is theoretically for cooler weather. My noggin is too big for that to be use in it's state capacity. But it occurred to me that I could palm my knife inside the hat, while piling the rest of my pocketed stuff in. The hat is crushable, so holding in that fashion would not be difficult to explain if I needed to.

So that's what I did. And it worked. The woman who was waving the wand didn't give my hat -- which had my wallet, some loose change, my travel journal,my cellphone, my lucky rock and Illinois buckeye, and a small pendant given to me as payment by my friend Heather Houzenga for street-calling poetry in it -- a second look. When she turned to the person behind me, I quickly palmed the knife and stuck it back in my pocket. I'd gotten away with it.

The other security guard had trouble unknotting my rucksack. Feeling safe and wanting to speed things up, I set my hat on the end of the small rolling cart and unbuckled and untied my rucksack. She dug around a bit, felt up my poncho pack, and was satisfied. I retied and rebuckled my blue rucksack and slung over my shoulder.

As I did, she moved the cart and my bag (probably)n hit my hat -- sending everything in it flying. The phone was unharmed (thanks OTTERBOX!) and I recovered everything. Eventually. The security guards and the people immediately behind me in line laughed. They found my lucky rock, my Illinois buckeye, and the distinctly feminine pendant quite funny.

I boarded the bus, glad to have gotten past the late night search. I found it interesting that they didn't ask me to open my guitar case, which I also DON'T put under the bus. But I didn't ask them why -- even though it's been mistaken for everything from a violin to a submachine gun.

I did end up not getting back all my loose change, however.

Williston Semi-Denied: Notes From Minneapolis

Trying to make Art is a lot like building a fire. You spend your time trying to recreate the effect of a bolt of lightening, usually without true success. - From Travel Journal

Though my time in Williston was far more brief than I wanted, and I was not able to camp in Glacier National Park, this jaunt west was not wasted.

First of all, travel is never wasted. There's something about being on the move that unfurls something in me, loosens a knot that does not loosen any other way. Momentum brings my nature rhythms back in time in a way that few things do. Travelling sharpens my perspectives and gives me an even deeper appreciation for the wealth of love I have in my life -- it enables to better appreciate the nuances of my life when I am stationary while at the same time feeding my addiction to a certain amount of movement.

Second of all, the real stuff of travel is not when things go according to plan. Like in the rest of life, the real stuff of travel happens outside the scope of an itinerary.

I was able to satisfy some requirements of my trip to Williston. Drinking in the lounge at the Travel Host Motel, I listened to a 72 year old oil field worker named Larry. Larry looked and spoke like he was chiseled out of the very Earth from which he extracted his living. He said he worked 7 days a week, and rarely took any time off. Apparently at some point he took enough time off to have a family, because he has 12 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren. 

(He didn't mention how many children he had. From what I know of grandparents, this is not at all unusual. Once the version 2.0's and 3.0's are popped out, the 1.0's are generally nothing more than baby transportation. He didn't mention his wife, either, except to say that he only when home when he had time off and had no choice.)

"These kids," Larry grumbled loudly. "They work five days and think they're being tortured!" If he'd been outside, I think he would have punctuated the statement by spitting on the ground. He said it like he had, many,many, many,many times. 

The influx of people into Williston has created not only unusual National attention -- I missed Larry The Cable Guy by a matter of days -- but has put added pressure on what is still a limited infrastructure. Yes, there's all kinds of new construction... mostly rental apartments. But according to Pat, a cab driver, unless you already owned a place before the boom, "You're screwed!"

Rents increased, says Pat from $300-$500 a month to $1,000-$2,500 FOR THE SAME SPACE.

Pat complained that even with the population explosion... she claims closer to 60,000 between the people who live there, the folks who come in to work the oil fields, and "the foreigners who move here to work in the fast food restaurants"... there's still nothing to do in spite of the traffic being a goddamn nightmare. "There's not even a mall," she scoffed. Pat also complained about the absence of a McDonalds.

But, with a conservative estimate of 50 years worth of black gold to suck out of the Bakken Formation, I assured her that somebody, sometime, would build a strip mall. They might even get a K-Mart or a Ross, Dress For Less.

She was not too convinced. But then, Pat was born and raised in Williston, and in spite of there being nothing to do, is still there. Maybe the only thing worse than things not changing is the inevitability that they will.

I also got to meet another writer, Lexi. 

She was going through town,too, visiting the area and writing about the people she meets. She writes a blog called Katwalk for culturekitten.com. She stopped to take my picture while I was sitting in a small park outside the train station, and we struck up a conversation. The thing I like about Lexi is that it's been a long time since I met someone who was actually excited about being a writer. And I mean excited. Most of us fall into this gig because we're not suited for much else... which makes nearly everything else an offshoot of some marrow deep need to scribble. I write for the same reason I breathe, and I make no promises about the artistic merit of either activity. 

Lexi was so excited that she was downright bubbly and nearly frenetic. And that is a good thing to see.  An addiction to words -- much like an addiction to travelling -- is not always an easy thing to feed. The difficulty can make it easier to simply take it for granted in favor something that pays more and sustains less. 

When I'm Out and About I am often struck by how fortunate I am to have friends and family, to be loved, to be able to find shelter, to have some of the opportunities I have had. It makes me more aware that there are people who have not had and do not get those opportunities. And for those of you who have yet to figure out why I have the political leanings I do, why I put faith in people and not institutions, and why it seems like I'm only getting more rascally as time goes on -- it is because I go Out and About and see this country I love.

And when I run into people like Lexi, I know for sure I'm on the right track.

Williston Update: The Boy Out Of The Small Town

It is not down on any map;true places never are. Herman Melville

The train arrived in Rugby two hours late. Since I got to town an hour and a half late, I was not surprised. The Empire Builder has 48 stops stretched across 2,257 miles from Chicago to Portland. That's plenty of space to lose five minutes at a time. 

By the time I left Chicago, I knew there was a chance I'd have to change my plans. I planned this jaunt around a multi-city train ticket. That was cheaper than the USA Rail Pass. But it restricted my movements and tied me to an arbitrarily set itinerary. It became clear pretty quickly though that traveling the way I do requires more adaptability than the exoskeletal structure of an official itinerary. 

For one thing, I'm running low on my road stake. For another, money I was counting on hasn't dropped -- a paycheck to be precise. The situation isn't dire enough for me to be stuck, but it is enough that I have to alter my plans. 

The possibility crossed my mind in Chicago. When I checked with a ticket agent at Union Station, I was told that in order to change my ticket, I'd have to pay $195 -- the cost of a one way ticket from Williston back to Minneapolis. 

9 days in Williston, then a few nights camping in Montana. That was the plan. Moving closer to East Glacier Park, though, I was finding it difficult to find a place to roust. The nearest camping site from East Glacier Park 10 miles away, in Browning. But with the tourist season in full swing, anything short of a roadside skid was more than I could cover or hope for. (Of course, once I looked at the Empire Builder Schedule -- after I bought the ticket -- I saw that the train goes to Browning, too.)

I'd planned enough to have two nights at a motel in Williston, and I've done some preliminary research. A few things were quickly and abundantly clear: most of the motels were full of oil field workers, and the impact of the sheer number of people is not being written about in any real way. 

Sure there's more money. Sales tax money. Property tax money -- though the number of people who have moved to Williston is probably significantly lower than the mass of folks who live here and in Stanley who work at the oil fields and send money home. Downtown Williston is a prime example of a small town in the process of polishing and growing ... more on that in another post. 

But this muckraker's eye knows to look at some other things, too. Like that there are more people putting more wear and tear on infrastructure than there's money to pay for repairs. 

I also noticed that -- other than the armory-- the first thing I saw when I walked up Main Street from the depot was a strip club and two bars side by side, and another building splashed with a billboard listing the 10 Commandments. 

Then there's what you don't see right away. For example, with more people with a pocketful of money and a lot of wear and tear to burn off on the weekend, there's more potential for trouble. 

The good news is I have what amounts to 2 full days here. My train isn't scheduled to leave until Saturday evening at 7:09pm. Even though it's the #8 (eastbound), I'll expect it will run late. 

I was able to change my ticket in Rugby even though I was told in Chi-town that it would cost more than I could really afford. This is the magic that can happen in a small town.

The train depot in Rugby is as historical structure, and the story of the train in Rugby is one about tenacity. One of the bulletin boards on the inside is covered with newspaper articles dating to the 1980's about how the powers that be were threatening to take the train away from Rugby, and how they fought to keep it there. 

When I travel and the more I live, the more I am convinced of a few things:

1. the story of transportation is tied to the true narrative of the country.

2. there are more stories worth hearing than there are mouths to tell them or words to record them.

3. there is something about small town American life that transcends the false narrative of Manifest Destiny. There is something about small town life that is both quintessentially American -- in all it's darkness and light -- and quintessentially human. 

I talked to the ticket agent in Rugby. I explained that I needed to alter my multi-city ticket and asked if there was a way I could cancel the last two legs -- from Williston to East Glacier Park and from there to Minneapolis -- to replace it with a ticket from Williston to Minneapolis. I expected the same answer I got in Chicago.

But he told me that not only could I change the ticket, but that I could end up getting refund.

Why wasn't I told this in Chicago?

Maybe it's because I'm a small town boy, born and bred; but I have been in enough cities to know that, for all their wonder, life, and instant access ... if you can afford it... that they embody a certain cynicism and apathy that people mistake for metropolitan sophistication.  it's the same sort of blasé attitude teenagers affect because they believe it's incredibly adult. 

So much culture -- but the soul is something hard to find in the top layers of chipped paint and cement and steel.

The refund will take a few days to show back up in my account, so it probably won't help me here. And it would be nice if the paycheck I was expecting would turn up before the end of the day. But I don't expect it. I do expect to make a phone call, however, and ask why.

But that's the nature of travel, and the problem of too rigid an itinerary.  Sometimes shit happens. And sometimes you have to work with the shit you've got. 

Williston Update: Eyes And Ears

I got to a state where phrases like "the Good, the True, the Beautiful" filled me with a kind of suppressed indignation.." - Thomas Merton

The biggest change since the last time I traveled by train is the heightened sense of paranoia... I mean security. There's a huge television in the Concourse B Lounge that plays a video on a permanent loop. The smiling, friendly woman in an Amtrak engineer's uniform assures us that we were all in this together. TSA, along with city,county, and state police are all working together to ensure that our rail experience is safe and enjoyable. They have specially trained explosive sniffing dogs. While the friendly engineer lady reads the cue cards, a montage of competent officers and well-trained dogs plays. Everyone is calm and courteous and official. 

But, that's not enough, according to the kind engineer lady and one of the calm and courteous and official TSA agents. 

"After all," he proclaims to the camera, "we're all in this together!"

They say they need my help. MY HELP. Why, I can be a hero,too! I can be the eyes and ears of the police and turn in people who look suspicious.

Whatever that means. The video makes sure to not advocate racial profiling. I am told several times to focus on behavior, not looks. The nice engineer lady is Black. The TSA is Latino. All of the people committing "suspicious acts" are white... and a few of them are even dressed like urban professionals.

After all, it could be anybody.

The thing about traveling, whether you're on your own or whether you are traveling with someone or with a group, is that at some point you have to be able to reach out to fellow travellers. Even if it's just to ask directions or about some procedural. In order to travel, you need to know when to reach out and ask for basic assistance. 

Yes, there are going to be less than trustworthy people; but generally, if you keep your wits about you, and you pay attention to your surroundings, you begin to learn who you can reach out to.

But does that mean that I need to be not  racially profiling and report some abstract "suspicious" behavior to a cop?

I don't know. I tend not to trust cops. I know there are good ones and there are bad ones... but in the end, they're the arm of an institution I have long lost faith in. And for all the talk in that Orwellian video about NOT racially profiling, the fact is that cops do generally profile people. The fact is WE ALL generally profile people. For example, when I say "I don't trust the police" I realize I'm lumping a whole bunch of people  together. The best I can do is try and remember that when they're people,too. 

I sometimes hear the phrase "post 9/11America." The heightened sense of paranoia... I mean security... and increased hassle of traveling. Random searches and added delays are a part of the deal. Your property is not private if some representative of one of the cooperating agencies decides you are behaving in a suspicious way. 

Williston Update: Heading Out

Dew is water to see,
Not water to drink:
We have forgotten water to drink.         
Yet I am content
Just to see sunrise again.
                                      -- Wallace Stevens, "Three Travelers Watch a Sunrise"

Image from The History Channel

The difference between traveling and going on vacation is the level of planning. The difference between being a tourist and being a traveller is the ability to roll with last minute changes and to think on your feet.

The bus to Chi-town pulls out of Louisville at 11:50pm tonight -- if the schedule holds. I'm in the process of completing last minute preparations.

A load of laundry.

Packing minimal provisions like trail mix and a few fresh apples.

Getting a new journal ready. Tying up the Cincinnati Day Book.

Trying to get some paperwork for a new gig tied up.

Keeping myself present, but remembering that life happens in all three tenses simultaneously: past, present, future.

There are still poems in the Cincinnati Day book that need to be typed. Some of them made into this blog. I'm planning on turning them into a chapbook once I get back from Williston. There are also plans for a limited, hand-made archival quality volume combining The Crossing of St. Frank, Whitman By Moonlight, and End Notes to the Deep Atlas of Time.

I'm looking for some freelance work and hoping to get some classes. I'm even looking at going back to school.

Right now, though, I have this trip. I'm looking forward to being on the move, and I'm hopeful that this trip to Williston will be fruitful.

And thanks to fellow writer, blogger, and highbrow/lowbrow culture devotee Misty Skaggs, I have learned that Larry the Cable Guy has decided to descend on Williston with his television crew, some brew, and truckloads of pork rinds to work on his latest project. In short, I'm now competing with a guy who got rich wearing sleeveless flannel and making jokes about the merits of incest.

It's a crazy, cruel world, Dear Readers.

I suspect we have divergent enough focuses that we probably won't cross paths. I also suspect that The Travel Channel security team and his entourage of faux-rednecks will create enough of a barrier that he won't interfere with my plans to find the kind of stories that don't make it onto NPR or The Travel Channel, or the pro-business scribblings Bloomberg.com

But we will see, Dear Readers. We will see. Stay tuned. Consider a small donation to the travel fund, and I'll mention you by name in the blog. Also, I'll send you a signed copy of Excerpts From The Cincinnati Daybook when it's ready.  

And I'll love you forever.

If that's not too creepy.

Gawd Bless!

Story Gathering Project 1 - Williston: Update 7/6/13

It's three days until I leave for Chicago to catch the train. True to form, I'm getting all the last minute details lined up... the ones I can get lined up at any rate... and making sure my pack is together.

The fine art of traveling cheap rests almost entirely upon contingencies and preparedness. You take certain parameters into account and move from there. On this trip out I'm taking the new rucksack, the blue guitar, and a sleeping bag. It's all light weight, all easy to combine and carry. It's summer, but I'm packing in case an impromptu chill descends. My boots are solid. I've got a poncho-bivy (it can work as a simple shelter as well as be worn as a poncho.) I'm taking some trail mix, a few apples, and a bottle of water. I'll have a little.. very little... cash to play with. 

I'm also taking a digital recorder, leftover from my days as a small town muckraker, and enough technology to be able to blog and send out updates to you, Dear Readers, and to those loved ones who would prefer that I return safe and sound.

There are other parameters to consider; in this case, the story-gathering project. I'm giving myself a short amount of time in Williston -- 9 days. I was hoping to give myself more leeway, on the long and short end, but finances dictated the mode and methodology of travel. I opted for a multi-city train ticket because it provided the most flexibility for what I could afford. And while this particular jaunt has some built-in reasons behind it... partially my curiosity and love of an interesting story, partially because after the winter I need to stretch my legs a bit. 

But I'm not much of an over-planner. It's important to be flexible when you travel, and go where the winds sometimes send you. Too much over planning and over scheduling and traveling runs the risk of turning into something else entirely... like a vacation. Ye gods. How is it that people -- who over schedule themselves and their kids to begin with -- decide to take a break from it all by packing up and going to some other geographical location, where they proceed to OVER PLAN AND OVER SCHEDULE every minute of their time there? By the time they get home, they're exhausted, just in time to go back to work where they can relax and reintegrate into the humdrum routine they wanted to escape in the first place.

There are some variables I won't be able to take into account until I there. Weather is the primary consideration. It's probably not going to snow, but there's been a lot of rain rolling around this year. I'm hoping to camp a bit while I'm out... particularly when I get to East Glacier Park, Montana. I want to spend a few days there, close to nature and in as much solitude as I can stand. 

Story Gathering Project 1, Williston: Plans and Updates

You cannot create experience. You must undergo it. - Camus

I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move.

- Robert Louis Stevenson 

I'm heading to Chicago to catch the train a week from today (Monday 7/1/13). I'll be taking the Empire Builder from Chicago to Rugby, North Dakota -- the ascribed center of North America. After a day there, I'll catch the train (again, the Empire Builder) to Williston.

I'm still working on accommodations in Rugby... hoping to camp, actually, if the weather isn't too oppositional. I don't worry too much about one night here or there, but I AM hoping to be out of the elements somewhat when I'm in Williston. The money I put away towards this trip has gone towards transportation costs and a newer, sturdier pack. (My old one, of dubious Chinese manufacture, barely survived last year. My new blue ruck is tougher, and American-made.) Since the Kickstarter campaign didn't quite work out, I'm having to piece together my shelter. For now, I've got two nights at one of the several motels in Williston... that's Thursday the 11th and Friday night the 12th. After that, I'm hoping something else will turn up.

Because of the influx of people looking for work in the tar sands... not to mention that pesky business about Wal-Mart effectively booting a primary customer base and demonstrating yet again it's poor people skills... there is no place that allows for tent camping in Williston, except for one place: the Buffalo Trails Campground. Having looked them up again as recently as today, it seems there's new management. That's a good thing if any of the previous reviews are at all accurate. Stay tuned for more on that one, Dear Readers.

I'm picking up on a few things in my early research about Williston, one point being so stereotypically American that I expect to see a flock of John Waynes moseying down the street. There are several motels. All of them have a bar. All of them have a casino. I haven't seen any indications of where Miss Peggy's House of Massage and Tea Room are located, but I expect there's some of that, too.

Or maybe that's one town over. I have also read that rent is getting so high in Williston that many workers are living in towns around for cheaper rents. This might account for some of the discrepancies in the population count. The 2010 census came up with a population of 14,716 -- an increase of around 2000 people since the 2000 census. But the fellas on the City Commission estimate a higher population count of at least 20,000. Maybe up near 30,000. The reason for the differential?

The 2010 census didn't count people living in Williston for work. 

In addition to fracking and oil wells, agriculture is still listed as part of the area's primary economy. I suspect that the bigger chunk of all that goes to service industries, though. Companies like Halliburton, which provides the fracking technology used by most of the oil companies represented in Williston Basin and the Bakken Formation.

You remember Halliburton, right? Darth Cheney's old outfit? The one that also gets fat government contracts?

As a matter of fact, Halliburton has a corporate offices in Williston.

I expect that getting there on a weekend will prime time for people watching and interaction. I'm hoping to spend enough time there to see what the real story is... the narrative that has yet to be told. There's something fundamentally... AMERICAN in the idea of a boomtown. It's tied into our history, into our mythology, into our sense of who we are. It's tied to our culturally constructed definitions of Democracy and Capitalism. (Still NOT the same thing, no matter what some far right wingers say.)  You read enough about boom towns and American History and you notice a couple of things:

1. It's never neat and tidy; there's a lot of violence, a lot of loss.
2. There's also success. But we tend to hear more about the successes and not the problems. Because the problems aren't simple, and because they are tied to more than just people making money. The problems are tied to power, to authority, and to the mythology of the American Dream... that old idea that if you just work hard enough, that you will succeed. 

P.S.: It's also tied to that old Objectivist (aka Ayn Randian) Dream: that the only rule that matters is Social Darwinism.

In order to save some money, in order to reduce the amount of time I'll have to kill between stops in Chi-town, I am taking a Greyhound Bus from River City to Chicago.  I only took Greyhound because it was actually cheaper than Megabus... though not by much. The Old Grey Dog, inspite of it's attempts to modernize with free wifi on SOME busses and electric outlets on SOME busses that work SOME of the time, is still missing some fundamentals of customer service.

For example, while Amtrak and Megabus BOTH have very functional and free iphone apps, Greyhound does not. This, in combination with scrapping the Discovery Pass, is one more nail in their coffin, as far as I'm concerned. 

Being concerned as I am and being a frequent traveller, I thought I'd given them the heads up. Rather than try and find some contact point in their corporate office... which is difficult to do... I decided to be that it would be best to contact them the way everyone communicates now:

via FACEBOOK.

I sent a short, polite message last night. And this morning, I actually got a message back. If you are a long time reader, you know HOW SIGNIFICANT THIS IS: 

Don't worry, AC. I will. You keep on bein' you.