Buses aren't as bad as I remember.

Before I get started, I want to mention that I'm not talking about school buses or chartered trips. I'm thinking specifically about taking a trip someplace and using the bus to get there.

My first bike ride was when I was in 7th grade. My Mom decided to send me on a bus to visit my best friend down in Virginia. In a car, the trip would have taken about 7 hours depending on traffic and all the unexpected things that pop up from time to time.

I was glad for the chance to take the trip. Sure I was young, but I wanted to see my friend, and I was more than willing to make the trip even if it was going to take 26 hours to get there.

(This is a little disconnected from the trip I was going to write about. Let me finish my positive thoughts and then I'll turn around and complain about bus stations.)

Anyway, those younger bus trips were not back to back and I got to spend a week with my best friend and really enjoy my time in Virginia. However, that didn't make either trip enjoyable. A bus is not a comfortable place to sleep at night, and big city bus stations are not nearly as nice as airport terminals. At the airport, someone keeps track of most of your stuff for you, but at the bus terminal, you have to you have to carry everything with you. (This is not fun, especially in the bathrooms.)

Anyway, I recently took an unexpected trip on the bus from Kearney, Nebraska to my new home in Fairplay, Colorado. It wasn't too bad. I left at 2 am and was able to sleep comfortably most of the night and even got a few things done. I was not as impressed with the last part of the trip. The second bus was a mess and made me wish I was on a regular bus.

OK, now let me complain about bus terminals. I don't know why I expected the terminal to have a wifi signal, but I did. I didn't find one that I could access, so I ended up dragging all my stuff down 7 or 8 blocks of Denver trying to find a place to pick up a signal. I did finally manage to find one, but it was not fun dragging my bags all over the city. I'm pretty sure I wasn't the first person to be stuck there for 6 hours waiting for a transfer to happen.

So, for the most part taking the bus isn't as bad as I remember, but there's still a long way to go.