Late night update from Seattle.
Matt and I finished our 32 hour epic from Denver to Seattle via: Laramie, Rock Springs, Salt Lake City, Tremonton, Boise, Baker City, Stanfield and Ellensburg. It was an interesting ride, including great lines like this from our driver, Roger: “This is a journey, not only of sight and sound, but imagination.” Don’t you forget it.
I also became friends with a man who also made the Denver-Seattle journey. I never picked up his name. I met him when he sat down next to me pulled something out of his pocket. He said it was “something special.” It was an one dollar coin circa the late 19th century. It looked something like this:
In describing it, he explained to me, “You see, I like really old… cool things.”
He was planning on going up to Canada, but only had an ID from Hawaii on him. After he asked me if I thought he’d be allowed to cross the border without a passport, he told me he knew a guy in Canada, and maybe after the border patrol spoke with his friend, he’d be allowed to cross.
My next set of encounters with my friend was on the second half of the trip. He walked by me on the bus, and told me he wanted to talk before the ride was over, but I shouldn’t worried, because it was good. When I was later getting Subway, and we had the following exchange:
Him: Hey man, I wanted to talk to you.
Me: Oh yeah, what about?
Him: What words can you tell me, that I can say to myself, to think good thoughts up here (pointing to head)?
Me: I don’t know man.
Him: What words do you believe in, because I believe in you!
The last adventure involved Matt and my friend. While I was checking when our bus was leaving out of Stanfield, OR, Matt was having a couple corn dogs. Then my friend turned around from his seat (mid-chew) and said to Matt: “I really like your friend… and you. I really like you and your friend.”
It made for a fun day and a half experiencing the Northwest with Greyhound. We’ll be here for a couple days with a meeting on Thursday before taking the tour South to San Francisco.
Here’s a picture Matt took from Boulder, featuring the limited edition AmeriCorps bottle caps!
5 Comments
May 8, 2008 at 12:09 pm
That’s an awesome story!
May 8, 2008 at 3:57 pm
1. I hope liking and believing in Sean and Matt equates to liking and believing in national service.
2. Where can I get some of those sweet bottle caps?
May 8, 2008 at 6:49 pm
We might need to head back to Boulder for another weekend to pick up some caps.
May 9, 2008 at 8:19 am
Wow guys! Your trip has definitely taken on a mystical aspect to it. You’re like an away team from Star Trek; boldly going where no one has gone before.
May 16, 2008 at 1:45 pm
[...] Matt and I took an epic ride from Los Angeles to Mesa, Arizona. It wasn’t our longest trip to date, only scheduled to take seven and a half hours. From the very beginning, however, something special [...]