I’ve been on the bus for two days and two nights from New York, and looking forward to a real bed and a shower tonight in Austin TX before heading into Mexico. Even now I’m not sorry I went by land,even if I only got a glimpse of this vast and enigmatic country.

New York I enjoyed hugely – Manhattan, that is. As Bill, my CUSO friend from Nigeria days, says, it gets better every time. It’s a big, friendly, people-place, an extroverted place. I bought a new camera and a teeny-weeny AM/FM radio. It was good to see Bill and his family.

Superficial impressions of the U.S. from the bus:

• Compared to Canada, there are a lot of black people, especially in the cities.
• The accents! New York, mid-west, Southern….
• A girl throwing up in the Greyhound washroom in Tulsa, Oklahoma, because she hadn’t eaten in four days.
• Pennsylvania between Harrisburg, the capital, and the outskirts of Pittsburgh – mostly trees. Hardly a house, and those decrepit and abandoned.
• Likewise there are trees in the Ozarks (Missouri) but the highway is lined with motels, amusement parks, restaurants, and other tourist traps.
• A giant praying hands statue near Joplin, MO

Here on the bus, I have five “stations” to tune my attention to:

• a funny and riveting account I’m reading of an Amazon excursion,
• the Oregon grandmother beside me and the story of her niece’s trip to Russia,

• Michael Jackson on my radio earphones,
• the flat Oklahoma countryside’s modern evangelical churches with big parking lots in front,
• and finally, tuning into my feelings: happy to be on the road at last.