A Day of Adventure

I'm just glad it's over. It started well enough. I received an e-mail during the night that a present had arrived and was already under my tree. (There's an app for that with Santa notification settings.) I had received a gift certificate for an electronic book. This would have been great except we had lost power earlier that morning. No power, no e-book.

Also, no coffee.

I put on my walking gear and decided to hike to the nearest coffee shop which happens to be a Starbucks (since you're never more than a mile from one at any given moment). And, wouldn't you know, they didn't have power either.

Still, no coffee and no e-book.

So I got ready for work, foregoing washing my hair since I couldn't dry it. Wouldn't you know - power at work. So, I got coffee but then, you know, I had to work.

But not for long because I ditched work to see Flight of the Butterflies, IMAX 3D Documentary on the Monarch Butterfly and then I got dropped off at the Amtrak station to catch a train to Portland.

I was informed there had been a mudslide so there were no trains to Portland. Luckily, I remembered there was a Bolt Bus leaving for Portland at 2. I had a half an hour to figure out where it was and how to get on it.

The ride was - shall we say - interesting. Within two blocks from our departure a woman in her mid-fifties was at the front of the bus complaining to the bus driver that the restroom was out of hand sanitizer. She seemed quite upset. As we were in downtown city traffic, the driver could do nothing other than direct her to  an overhead bin where some additional sanitizer might be found.

It wasn't there. The woman was becoming agitated. Worried, she went back to her seat and, apparently, called customer service at Bolt Bus to complain about it.

I was two rows behind the driver so I heard him when someone at Bolt Bus called the driver and asked him to pull over somewhere so she could wash her hands.

This is a non-stop express bus between Seattle and Portland. Expected travel time -  with no stops - is about three hours.

The bus pulled over but the woman didn't get off. People in the back of the bus had no idea why we had stopped so they started calling Customer Service.

The bus continued on for several miles and the bus driver continued to make and receive phone calls as snow began to fall. I watched him peer over his glasses in order to see the keypad to dial his phone. It was unnerving.

The bus driver was advised to make an announcement on the intercom so that people in the back of the bus would know why we had stopped. Meanwhile everyone in the front of the bus already knew and were quite angry with the woman for causing the bus to make a stop. They started teasing her. One woman got in an argument with her. All the while, I could hear the driver talking on the phone or to front row passengers saying that the woman was maybe not all there.

I started feeling sorry for the woman. Tensions were running high.

Concerned passengers gathered what they had to accommodate the woman. One passenger had bottled water. Another had soap. They offered it to the woman who took the items and as she went to the restroom to use them, passengers cheered and called themselves Team Bolt!

The driver continued to bad talk the woman. For miles and miles.

Finally, the entire episode ended and the driver and one passenger proceeded to exchange their entire life stories. I was so thankful to have my iPod so I could tune it all out.

When I got to Portland traffic was bad so I stayed downtown for dinner. That was nice. But when I got home I found the light bulb for my little porcelain Christmas tree had burned out.

A perfect final ending to a perfectly strange day.

I think I'll stick with Amtrak.