When I was in the first grade, I had a most unusual experience during the month of October. I guess it was about 1977 or so, since I was 6 years old in the first grade. My father had gotten his MBA a while before from Rutgers in New Jersey, and he was about to land a job with Honeywell in Arizone.

For some odd reason, my parents decided that my mother should travel across the country with her two young children to check Arizona out. Both of my parents had lived there before, when my father was going to college at ASU in Tempe. My mother also went there, briefly, but she decided that the college life wasn't quite cut out for her [she's doing quite well now without a college diploma, thank you very much]. My father was going to stay at home in NJ, since he was working and couldn't take a month off just yet.

That is the first interesting detail. A month. We were going to go to Arizona for a month to have a look around. Remember, I was in the first grade, and it was only October, so the school year was just getting off to a fine start. My sister, born on my second birthday of course, was just starting out in pre-school, so she wasn't going to be missing more than colors and maybe some counting. Special arrangements had to be made for my departure, however, and they included taking a month's worth of homework with me on our trip. That sort of sucked.

The second interesting detail was that the three of us were not going to be traveling alone. My mother had (has, rather) a best friend whom she has known since they were five years old or so, and it happens that she, Frasc (a nickname from those "old days") had two children that were almost exactly the same age as my sister and I, but reversed (Heather was my age, Marcus was my sister's age). And so we were six, soon-to-be bound for Arizona for a one-month look-see.

This brings us to the third interesting detail, and one that pretty well causes this to be a story at all. Six people traveling to Arizona from New Jersey at that time was quite an undertaking for any two women, to be sure, but it was also a little on the pricey side. Flying, that is. Trains were also a little bit steep at the time, so the next best thing was to "Go Greyhound." So, as you will see, our little adventure was made that much more interesting because of the simple fact that the six of us would be cramped for five days on various buses passing through various parts of America.

I will tell you now that we did make it, intact, by a little insane as well. I will also tell you that my mother has reviewed this story, since the memories of my six-year-old days has long since faded.

So we begin. We were at the bus station at some odd morning hour, or maybe it was evening. It was dark. Frasc and her kids met us at the station with Frasc's mother, Mrs. Frasca [See?], and my father was seeing us off at the station as well. I recall my mother packing some snacks of some sort, like apples and maybe some fig newtons, but these might also have popped up along the trip.

We climbed aboard, had a bit of a tif over where each of us would be sitting (decided most swiftly, if I am not mistaken, by one of the mothers), and watched through the window as Mrs. Frasca cried and my dad waved and smiled. My girlfriend has three nefews, 8, 4, and 3, and she gets to watch them all of the time, which, retrospectively, explains completely why my father was not more upset at the prospect of an empty house for a month.

The trip started off smoothly, and once we were moving for a few minutes, I seem to recall having to use the restroom. At this point, I became acquainted with the latest in porta-pottie technology, and I learned that it is tricky to hold on and hold on when the bus itself is negotiating turns on the freeway. It was a skill that would come in handy over the course of the trip.

We had assembled a full complement of games and toys, and some reading materials for Heather and I, and even some homework. But nothing was more fascinating that the view out the windows. This would hold true for several minutes at a time along the trip, as city after city passed us by. When the view was not interesting, and when the games just weren't appealing, the four of us took time to become violently playful with each other, at some points endangering each other's lives-- not from our own violence, but from the overwhelmed, embarrassed mothers that so-often separated us with extreme prejudice.

But I am getting ahead of myself. The fact that this was a bus meant that our only stops would be at bus terminals to change buses, at restaurants to eat and stretch a bit, and random other stops to pick up people (that last one was true, but it was not planned ahead of time). As such, we never really stopped in any particular place, but we definitely made it to CITY in the first day some time.

At night, when the rest of the people on the bus were sleeping, Heather was trying to convince us that there were ghosts following the bus in the trees along the sides of the highway, and she would swear to see them flitting along, disappearing just before we managed to look where she was pointing. Other parts of the evening were spent informing our respective parents of things like our needs to visit the restroom, the comfort level of the Greyhound bus seats, and the never-ending need to know if were were "there yet."

So some notable events along the way included

• We ate at a road-side general store for lunch one day, and after we kids took our respective bites into some generic hot dogs and discovered a greenish tint to the inside, um, filling, our parents gleefully purchased infinitely-fresh, pre-packaged Twinkies. Needless to say, we were pleased.
• At one point we pulled into a bus terminal at around 4am and had to wait for about 5 hours for our connecting bus. Two moms, four tired-yet-hyper kids, and a skanky terminal. I am truly impressed.
• After a particularly long stretch, we at the back of the bus were the last to get off at one junction of our trip. We were supposed to get back on the same bus, but the driver stopped the moms and informed them in no uncertain terms that there would be another bus on the same route coming along shortly that would have no other passengers on it, and that we should consider taking that bus.
• One of our drivers was driving well into the wee hours, and was having some difficulty staying awake. My mom told me about this, but I am sure I do not recall this one.
• One driver stopped to pick up a roadside passenger, who happened to be carrying a rifle. He stowed it in the overhead luggage shelf, presumably for convenient access. I would imagine that this driver did not have difficulties staying awake from that point on.

Well, we did arrive in Phoenix after about four days, and even though it was October, I remember it being quite warm. We rented an old, red VW Bug to get around in. This proved to be yet another challenge, since there were 4 kids, 2 adults, and enough luggage for all of those people. If you have ever driven or ridden in a bug, you will recall that they are only so roomy. I think I blocked out some of this, but I remember sitting on a white Samsonite suitcase and one of the smaller among us crouched in the very rear of the bug, in a space that normally accomodates a few gallons of milk or somesuch.

And so ended our Greyhound adventure. Strangely enough, I have not taken any bus trips of noteworthy length since then. Oh, we made our way to Sacramento, by bus, later in October to visit some relatives, and were rewarded with a flight back to New Jersey via TWA.