Mini adventure

Tomorrow my younger sister and I are driving in her car to Sheridan, Wyoming, a trip of about 700 miles or 12+hours. She’s taking a job at a dude ranch for the summer, where I’m sure everyone will hear way too many jokes along the line of “duuuuude!” said in a surfer voice. Her car is actually my old car, and ‘89 Honda Civic hatchback, and it has 285000 miles on it. So i’m going along as moral support, to take turns driving, and to be there just in case it breaks down in the middle of nowhere. Obviously I’m not going to fix it with my own two bare hands and some duct tape, but this way it’s necessary to hitchhike to the nearest town there’ll be two of us. (Just kidding Mike, I promise there will be no hitchhiking. We’ll steal a tractor or a cow or something instead.)

I’ll have about a day and a half to visit my older sister, who lives near Sheridan and trains polo ponies, and then she’s driving me up to Billings to catch a Greyhound bus. (She says she doesn’t mind driving the 2.5 hours to Billings on her day off as it means she gets to go to Olive Garden for lunch and embarrass me by asking for and eating 8 baskets of breadsticks.) I’m somewhat apprehensive about this as I’ve never ridden a bus for a long trip before, and have to admit some curiosity as to who else will be travelling with me. I’m kind of picturing a bunch of really weird people that you never see otherwise, although I know they can’t be all like that as my mother once rode a Greyhound all the way from Denver back to Northern Idaho. I’d prefer to fly but all the flights out of Billings for under $500 go through Denver, Salt Lake City, or Seattle and then to Spokane, whereas taking the bus costs about $80 and takes me right to Coeur d alene in 11 hours.

Here’s my list of supplies for the trip:

iPod - full of neat music and some audiobooks, so I can be very obviously busy and not have to talk to anyone unless they look unscary

Books - I went to the library yesterday and have about 5 books for the 3 day trip. Might be enough.

Snackies! - I’ll make sure to pick out mostly smelly ones, like garlic parmesan cheese-its or similar, to ensure I don’t have to sit next to someone.

Essentials - ibuprofen, chocolate, water, and oh yeah, some clothes/shoes/coat etc.

I have to fit all this in a backpack as I don’t want to check a bag because then I don’t have to get to the bus station an hour early, leaving more time for the breadstick eating.

Has anyone else ever taken a Greyhound for a trip before?