Onboard Krusty's Grey Hound from Hell...bitter Old Oil Man Semi Retired Buys Me a Soda...cashed Out Net Worth and I Still Make it to Fort Myers Florida from Ohio

"Do you have everything?"
"Yeah, I've got it all"
"Are you sure?"
"YES"
"Sure?"
...if I hadn't known any better, I thought my mother was messing with my head.

I gave her a big good bye hug before heading in to my first bus terminal ever. The city was the beloved Cincinnati, the home of the Reds and the Bengal's, and the home of a very well run-down Grey Hound mess. It was just barely smaller than the smallest airport I had ever been to up to that point-New Haven International Airport in Connecticut-, and smelled like the jacked up toilet in the back of a 20+ year old bus that I would soon be boarding. Once I found my seat in the terminal, I gazed out the window and took in the view. The Cincinnati skyline is seldom seen as beautiful, but when you only spent one week in Ohio, after 4 months in a far away state, the city seems bigger and more alive than you had remembered.

On my trip of sheer excitement, I would be riding a total of three buses. I would be going from Cincinnati to Atlanta, and then to Fort Lauderdale. On this first bus, nothing out of the expected happened, and nothing much else occurred. No strange characters, and no interesting arguments being shouted up and down the lengthy vehicle. This first ride would prove to be the most enjoyable and less torturous of the three, and would be longingly missed. We drove over the toxic Ohio river into Kentucky, where we stopped at a Burger King in Lexington, and then drove through the Kentucky hills where the strange go to become even stranger. I gazed out the large over sized window and wondered what the civil war must have been like in those humble hills, where the only thing you can now find are a few billboards and an abundant amount of run-down trailers and shattered tobacco barns. Oh how the times have changed, and no one lives long enough to notice.

Passing through by the numerous rotting deer corpses in the blue grass state, we made it to the country music capital of the world, Nashville Tennessee. I've been to the city before, on several family vacations when I was younger. As a little worm of a boy, I was always taken aback by the obsessive nature of the people who lived there, to make it big, to get signed onto a record deal, all the while, thousands of over weight, fanny-pack wearing tourists flock to their bars and little shops of junk. Then there's the weather. One minute it'll poor down raining and gives the impression that there's a massive tornado just over your shoulder waiting to suck you in, grind you up, and toss you into a house somewhere, then the next minute, the weather just as quickly turns sunny and dry as if nothing had happened. All in all, it sounds like an abusive relationship where there's the victim and the master. Tourism and bipolar weather doesn't make Tennessee a victim. No. Rather, it's the sheer stubbornness of the natives. Hard working as they maybe, they are for sure, set in their ways and cautious with their trust to anyone who proposes a change of any sort. I didn't know this back then, of course. But it would come to me in many manifestations throughout the years, from friends and relatives. God love 'em.

Only four individuals boarded our over stuffed bus, to everyone's relief. They appeared innocent enough, with their Texan/Mexican attire and genuinely nice manner they carried. Next step was Atlanta Georgia, where I was to switch buses. I had never been to Atlanta, but have always enjoyed the art that's been born there. The contagious southern charm the breathes in every lung and smile, takes you a back for a minute, but then reassures you that its no act. The city itself is massive, and is impressive in its modernism and expansion. I didn't get much hospitality while there, however, just a brief shove from the back as we were boarding. Quickly, breathing my short temper, I turned around and said, "watch it, cool off, we're all going to board don't worry". After several hours on the road with a stench that cry's murder, I hardly felt like a fight or even more sarcasm. I headed to a seat, and instantly dosed off.

When I woke up, the sun was still nowhere to be seen, and the lights of speeding mad trucks and cars streaking the dark. I wondered if there were deer around, maybe we would slam into one for good luck, for my new driver looked like Krusty the clown, and drove like a drunken mad man on a coke binge. A few sits back was the toilet, slushing and washing all over the bathroom, pushing the smell of cleaner and crap mixed with urine all throughout the bus. With a mix of horribly unsafe driving and a sewage smell, there was only one thing for us passengers to do: make fun of the driver, complain, and crack jokes about the trip itself. Strangely enough, it took me back to one of my very first flights. Only difference was the plane was much larger, and the pilot was intelligent and sober. This bus ride was not to stop at any pit stops or breaks, and would leave every single person with a sore neck and a crappy mood of vengeful rage.

Through my worn out eye lids, the sun woke me up to the world of Krusty. Apparently someone ticked him off with a bottle of rum and whiskey and had to be kicked off. The mad clown with out the make up was in a fitful, and pitiful rage that was both funny and weird. He seamlessly rushed up and down the bus, for no apparent reason, and flopped back into the drivers seat. A flop that reeked a drunk. This clown was a hypocrite, and a snooze if he ever tried to tell a joke. Luckily for him, he was the joke, and we were all laughing pretty hard, if not to merely alleviate our fear of dying by the mans doing.

Needless to say, after many curb hits and plenty of cut-offs, and two near tip-over, we made it in one piece to Florida. Fort Lauderdale proved to be a very beautiful, and colorful place indeed. With buildings painted in corals and naturals, with brick roads and brand spank'n new sidewalks, the place wrapped you in a warm charm that is of the tropical version of what you might find in the much colder New England and its charm up north. People, for the most part, were very friendly, and extremely laid back. Welcome to Florida. People are immensely laid back, and it takes some getting use to. Especially if your coming from the north east, where its anything but laid back. The rest of the trip to Fort Myers was just as laid back, with the exception of a car accident involving three young girls and a flipped over Wrangler jeep. Luckily, it didn't appear fatal, but was horrible for sure. Once arriving to Fort Myers, I said my piece to the bus way of travel, and headed out to meet my ride in one worn out piece.