Hi again and so sorry for being absent for so long. I have no good excuse, just that life has been keeping me busy and probably I needed to live and think about living more than I needed to write these past weeks.  The writing is always in me and in terms of my experiences I always seem to be thinking of writing about them, so here I go.

I had some thoughts on my long and difficult travel from Oslo to Las Vegas, Nevada, the trip that normally takes less than 24 hours that lasted five days, including three snowed in at Frankfurt International Airport. The experiences are recorded in an earlier post, but I had some afterthoughts.  I met and spoke with a lot of people on this journey and upon reflection I realized that all the people I met on my airport experiences were connected to a university in one way or another. Either they were American exchange students or professors – all interesting and wonderful people. I failed to write about the people I met on the bus from Las Vegas to Flagstaff, one reason for this is that I had already written so much about the trip that I was sick of it, the bus ride being the very last leg of it. Another reason might actually have been that the people on the bus were not in any way boasting or telling me about their lives, I sort of had to pick up on it myself – by listening to what they did not share.

When the bus driver took pity on me and let me on the bus as the last passenger there was only one place for me to sit, it was right behind the driver next to an African-American man.  The man moved his case so  that I could sit and then he stretched out his hand and said “Hi, my name is Eric”.  As the bus started moving he told me that he thought it was amazing how I could still be smiling after such a long and difficult journey. He said that as I was telling my story to everyone around me at the bus station he was silently praying that I would get a seat on the bus and that it would be next to him!  I thanked him for his prayers and then we were suddenly friends. He made jokes about his name being Eric, not Eric the Red (playing on the Norwegian connection) but Erick the Black as was his color. We had a nice time chatting as the ride went on. After driving through the very beautiful Golden Valley, Nevada we were slowly making our way up the hill towards Kingman when the driver suddenly pulled the bus over to the side of the road. He quietly and quickly got out of the bus and was “messing” around with the engine in the back.  After about five minutes he came back inside and very, very slowly continued the drive up the steep hill.  When we arrived in Kingman the bus pulled into a truck stop, he drove to the far end of it, backed the bus into a parking slot and turned off the engine.  Sitting right behind the driver I could hear him take a deep breath and then he picked up his microphone and let us all know that the bus was going no further as it had broken down. The driver was sort of a hero because he got us to the truck stop where there was a fast food restaurant. We all piled out of the bus and went to order some chicken or other lunch items. My new friend Eric lent me his phone so that I could call Janis in Flagstaff and let her know about the delay. The driver had announced that he would telephone Las Vegas so that they could send a replacement bus for us and that this would probably take up to three hours as they would first need to get hold of a replacement driver as well.

In the bus station I had noticed a very shy and quiet man standing right behind me in the line. I told him that I really had no business being in the line at all as I only had a stand by ticket, but that it made me feel good to pretend that I was actually going to get on the bus. He nodded his head in understanding and gave me a very slight smile. I noticed how soft his blue eyes were and how humble his mannerism.  At the truck stop when I was standing away from the others he came up to me and softly asked if he may borrow my cell phone to make a call for a pick up as his destination was Kingman, but the bus stop was further on.  I apologized and said that I had myself borrowed a phone, and suggested that he go ask Eric.  Later when I saw this shy man again standing on the curb as if waiting for something, I went to him and asked if he had been able to make his call. He nodded his head and said that his mother-in-law was on her way to pick him up. Eric later told me that he was on a parole Christmas visit and would be going back to jail after the holidays.  The wait for my ride to Flagstaff was a little longer than this mans wait, so I want back to the bus to wait it out in my comfortable seat.  Across the aisle was a woman in her 60′s. She asked me about my travels and we began a conversation. When I asked her about her being on the bus, she said she is traveling all over the country on Greyhound busses looking for elderly people to interview and then she hoped to publish a book on the stories they told.  I wished her good luck and offered her a ride to Flagstaff with Janis and I, but she declined saying it would be unfair to the other passengers. There were a couple of native men on the bus and as I was speaking with them my friend Janis arrived and we could continue on to Flagstaff. Before I left I filled in the driver on all my trials and tribulations and experiences traveling, he was amazed that I would end up on a bus breaking down in Kingman!

I did finally reach my destination and here I am in front of Bell Rock in Sedona

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