This month, I was originally going to write about Ouran High School Host Club. However, due to moving and a long three day trip via bus, it was decided I would write up an editorial for our trek instead. For those of you who're curious, we made it in one piece. "We" as in myself and EmJay. I suppose some [if not a lot] of you didn't know we were planning to move to begin with. To spare you a sob story, just know where we were was no longer to our liking. Deciding to fix that, we gave our thirty day notice to management and waited out or time left. I had no issue in leaving my job, as it was seasonal and not worth the pay it gave me. The city, in itself, outside maybe a visit, just isn't worth it to live there either. Don't believe me? Try it for yourself sometime. In my 24 years, it was going nowhere fast. Nowhere but down a dark hole, but that's just my opinion. After much consideration and debating, California was our destination.

To begin, we had our ups and downs, laughs, and Morgan Freeman. Though, he's not as nice as you'd think. Well, this guy must have been (voice speaking) his twin brother. Needless to say, the beginning of a trip was soothed by a nice voice over. Leaving early Saturday morning was a breeze...windy, but a breeze. We had time to kill in the Toledo Greyhound, granted we were probably both half asleep. Getting on the bus was easy; nothing was amiss. Though, the bus itself could have used some work, but beggars can't be choosers, right? Five hours later, we made it to Chicago, Illinois. Already new to the sights and scenery, we saw more once we left the city...five hours later. Yeeeah, about that. The Greyhound terminal for Chicago isn't exactly the friendliest. Say what you want if you DO enjoy it. Just after our unexpected overlay, I've got nothing. We arrived in plenty of time for the first transfer.

From Chicago, we were going toward the west (have to get to California somehow right?). We saw the bus, and it was a nice one too. Not many of you know, but Greyhound has new buses in the making. Free wi-fi, more leg room, electrical outlets. The only downside was the leather seating. Sure it sounds comfy, but sleeping on it is another story. So the bus said “Los Angeles” and already had a lot of it's baggage for the riders beside it. Reading our tickets, we figured the gate we were at was right, and maybe LA had more than one bus. Time passed, no bus came. Fuuuuuu!!! Concerned, I walked over to Information and asked the woman (who thought having a skunk hairstyle was stylish...ew?) about the bus. I had vaguely heard anything about it from the lack of a announcement system from bus rides boarding and going. Let's just say: "yes, there were announcements". Could you even POSSIBLY make out what was being said? No. Hence our problem. To our credit, it was our first time taking Greyhound, so we were pretty clueless in all of it.

I stated to the woman at Information how it was hard to hear the mention for buses with the noise and lack of proper system announcing. In reply, I got an attitude and an eye roll. Says volumes of their customer dedication, yes? At the very least, she switched out our original tickets for a new route. Glad for that much, we eyed over our new map. Only to see the next bus wouldn't be until later that evening. We came on this trip with little funding, we expected that to be the least of our worries. Just making it out safe was much more important. Too bad; with as many lay-overs as we wound up having, more money probably would have been nice. Regardless, we read our books we'd brought along for awhile, got something cheap to eat, and let our frustrations of the situation slowly fade away. Once time came to re-board, I knew I was tired. Small side note, if you ever feel like going Greyhound without some form of a pillow for your neck? Don't. I had to improvise using my purse, which only worked because it was crowded with books and having the window seat as support.

Every bus driver would go through the usual rules of the ride, and only so many people bothered in following them. Needless to say, I think karma hates me. Most of my trip on buses was spent in front of or behind kids. Kids with parents who couldn't seem to care or handle them. I'm glad Greyhound allows foods on their buses, but when kids buy chips and it's late at night (and most other passengers are sleeping) we get shiny object syndrome. They just can't help themselves but to crinkle the bag and make a ruckus. For most people, you can sleep through just about anything if you're tired enough. Even if I were, I'm still a light sleeper. Lights are low or off, snoring around me isn't so bad...but those kids. Ooooh, those kids! Just when you'd think things were getting better, we get another small overlay to eat, and more shiny loud things are bought. Just my luck. Well, that and being unable to fully recline my seat. Needless to say, fatigue didn't take long to set in.

If you've never had the chance to travel via bus: Indiana (including South Bend, familiar to some people thanks to Notre Dame, aka The Fighting Irish. To quote EmJay as we traveled through, “I feel a little douchier already.”), Illinois (Chi-town anyone?), Iowa (Uhhh...), and Nebraska (...corn?) all look the same. I tried getting pictures of anything unfamiliar, but nothing leaped out at me. Nothing but barrels of hay, grass, and irrigation systems. I blame the route we took, and that fatigue made me care less to try and look at things. So, I slept what I could, and mostly felt uninterested until we hit Denver, Colorado. Going through the Rocky Mountains while having a bus driver who felt we were partaking in the Summer Olympics made it a challenge to sleep. I wish we would have been able to see the mountains during the day; it's not so much that they were scary at night, more so, less appealing. After Colorado came Nevada. Didn't get to see much of this state, other than Sin City. Or, As our bus driver so cleverly worded it: “Lost Wages”. I took most of my photography during this time, entering and leaving. Our original trip was meant to be going through the city at night, but I'm glad we had that fixed. For as large as Las Vegas was, the Greyhound Terminal was ridiculously small. Small, and lacking air condition. You'd think with how large the city is, the least they could do is make a nicer Greyhound. Even so, I got to watch The Price is Right during our small waiting period, so I was content. Back on the bus, tired of sleeping on leather seating by this point, the route from there took us into California. Honestly, all I remember by now was being impatient, and lots of plateaus...that I confused as the Rocky Mountains. Can you blame me?! Lots of mountains could throw anyone off!

Most of the remainder of our trip was made during the evening hours, and we didn't make it to our final transfer until the night before the 29th. With both the original trip and new, we'd of had a five hour lay-over in Los Angeles, California. So, how can you waste that large of a time frame in LA? Well, other than seeing a Dodgers' game (Zing!), I remember during our time left, we stood an hour of it in line making sure to actually get a seat on the final bus ride. Oh, I also remember this was my first taste of California television, and the new time zone. Literally, from Ohio to California, I traveled back in time. I'll spare you the Back to the Future/Dr. Who jokes, though. Just from some of the local programming, I was already liking what I saw/what I could hear of it. By our travel now, we were out of money. It didn't phase me at first, as we'd been eating a meal per day anyway. That's how I eat regardless. If you tack on fatigue, foul odors, and a change in the air which had me constantly feeling thirsty, that's when you get problems. Amazingly, I managed to ignore it. I knew it'd only be another six hours; surely I could stomach that if I slept through most of it. Rotten egg smells for most of the bus ride aside, I was able to doze off enough to be able to wake just as we came into San Jose, California.

Things are a little hazy for me to say what happened next. I was still trying to wake up, and remember mostly walking to and from places. Oh, and a panda. I also remember a panda. The morning was brisk, but not unbearable [get it? UnBEARable?] and it wasn't long until I was on another bus. The bus ride in which I wish could be forgotten. Too bad a certain Poolboy and Panda won't let that happen, not if it's for a good laugh. Apparently, I was being hit on during the ride in my half-asleep stupor. Too bad I was just that out of it that I didn't know what was really going on around me. To my defense, EmJay quickly scared the guy off. Good thing too, I really had no idea what the guy was getting at trying to strangely hand me things from his front pocket. The good laugh being that, now both EmJay and Hohopapa tease me about it. All in good fun though, seeing as it doesn't bother me.

After our arrival, Hohopapa had a motel room rented out for a couple of days. We've been [for a week now] re-renting the rooms for another night since getting into town. So far the town hasn't been so hard to remember, and the mall is amazing. Though it goes without saying there's a lot of things I'll need to be getting used to. Palm trees and trains come to mind. Not to mention the constantly nice weather. Before leaving Ohio, I swear the state was trying to tear itself apart. Tornados, hail, heavy rain, strong storms, earthquakes. You read that right, earthquakes. Apparently a quake hit Quebec, Canada that was strong enough in magnitude that the aftershock was felt all the way to West Virginia. Admittedly, I thought when I'd first felt to be feeling a swaying motion I was loosing my mind. In reality, the swaying was at least enough to throw off my equilibrium. So, I spent the remainder of that day feeling sick to my stomach and sleeping.

None of that matters now, right? We made it in one piece to California! Are you happy for us? I'm happy for us! I know working back up won't be easy, but I've done it before. Thankfully, keeping a positive perspective means I'm not going into this totally blind-sided. From our research as of late, we've mostly got the run around trying to find places to help us out. I expected that, so it's nothing too shocking. My guess is, no conventions will probably be attended until next year. Right now, the most important thing is working on getting financially stable, leisure comes later.

Moral of the story: Bacon.

That's all for The Monthly Feature!

Don't forget to be on the look out for Ouran High School Host Club next month! <33