We had finished our tour of England and were about to leave for home via America. We had made our bookings to stay in New York for three days before carrying on by the ordinary Greyhound bus line (this was in 1988) across the States. We had a month’s open ticket from the time it was first used, and we could get on and off as many times as we liked during that month.
We enjoyed our few days in New York, staying in a budget hostel near the centre of the city, and our time there warrants a story of its own!
We soon found that things travelling by bus were very different to what we had expected. The first thing we noticed was that the buses (which were not tour buses) didn’t have wide panorama windows with a good view, but were fairly high with very little view to be seen from them. The second thing we found out was that no bookings needed to be made ahead, one just arrived at the bus depot and stood in line. It was a case of first come, first served! The third thing was that the main Greyhound bus depots were always in the centre of the down-town areas, and there was very little information to be had….no information help desk or kiosk to help ignorant tourists travelling alone in this big country for the first time. Not only that, but the bus depots were the haven for many beggars who looked as though they lived there, with their few belongings clustered around them. Then there were the taxi drivers all jostling you to take your bags to goodness knows where, so if you weren’t quick keeping them with you, you had to helplessly follow them and hope for the best.
Many of our fellow-travellers were young back-packers, while others were a collection of all different types of people. We felt quite vulnerable with all our worldly possessions for the trip in a couple of suitcases, and our money, passports and other documents about our persons. When one is travelling like that, it makes one realise that all the paraphernalia that one accumulates in life is really quite unnecessary for the moment! Another thing that we felt quite strongly was that even though we weren’t sure what we were going to find at the end of the day, yet we could confidently commit our day’s travel to the Lord each morning. Then just trust that He would direct us to find a bed somewhere to lay our heads on that night!
We managed to get the front seat for the first day of our journey, and this gave a good view of the road ahead. This inspired us to be bold enough to pray that night that we might be able to have the front seat for the whole trip as we had come to America to see the country. Were we being cheeky to ask such a thing? We didn’t know, but we remembered the verse that says, “You don’t have, because you don’t ask” and so we asked and then did our part by always being early in line at the bus depot each morning.
Where is the miracle in all this? What we couldn’t do, God did for us. Each day, we managed to have the front seat. Sometimes we would travel during the night on the bus, and views didn’t count then. The bus would pull in to various depots on the way, and people would get on and off. Sometimes as people were travelling long distances, we found our seat had been warmed by someone who had just left the bus. Other times if people had just got off for a comfort stop, they would board the bus back to their previous seat, completely bypassing the empty front seat which was waiting for us. Twice when boarding the bus late in the day, we had to start off by sitting further back. People were getting off at various stops along the way during the night and each time if we could edge our way further forward, we would. By the time daylight had come, we were back into the front seat again!
Another time, we found a real crowd waiting for the bus when we arrived at the depot, and we were fairly well down the line.
I gave my mate a poke in the back and said, “I don’t think we’ll get the front seat this time!” The bus pulled in with a hiss of its brakes, and people started to climb aboard. I could see the front seat was filled fairly early on this time. The bus was full by the time the last person in front of us got on board. A barrier was put across the line, and another bus pulled in as the first one left. We were the first ones to board this bus, and were able to sink thankfully into the front seat again! Truly, God was marvellously good to us!
We had a wonderful month, seeing much of the countryside and meeting some wonderful people who we have since kept in touch with for nearly thirty years!