In case you were wondering…

This is the route we took (more or less):

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Ever wonder where your Kraft cheese is stored?

This was the shipper we picked up from last night

more later

Some back-story

Okay…It’s been a few hours and I’ve had a chance to eat:

(BTW..some assembly required!  ROFLMAO)  I DO have to give them credit though… it was a damn good roast beef with four slices of thick sliced beef, and two slices of american cheese.  It might have been “assembled in USA”, but it was good stuff!

As promised, here’s some of the events of the past 24 hours (summarized for your relatively painless enjoyment!):

Kathie and I were actually rather early having had to run a few errands before getting me down there and wanting to make sure my ticket was available at the “Will Call” window (Prime had only given me a reservation number).  So we arrived around 4 at the “Portland Transportation Center”…you know the one in South Portland that does the DownEaster and busses?  Did you know the “Portland Transportation Center” ONLY serves Amtrak and Concord Trailways?  Neither did we!  We were politely told that we needed to further down Congress street and we couldn’t miss it on the right.  We found it…it was the one on the corner surrounded by all the Somali’s, Crack Queens, and generally Portland’s finest citizens!  NOT a good omen when starting a trip, but we go in, find out I can stand in line at 4:30, here’s your ticket, get the F*ck out.  (Remind me to tell the story of the ticket agent at the location some day).

Long story short…got the ticket in hand, bags are packed and the bus rolls in.  Of course so did the rain…but I digress.  Kathie and I say our good-byes, through my bag under the bus, and climb my ass on board.  Okay…maybe this won’t be so bad after all, I get my own seat!  Bonus!

Depart Portland:  5:00pm

The ride was pretty uneventful…got into South Station in Boston with a sweat… oh wait, I’ve got to tell you this one:

Had a stop along the way in Portsmouth…the old section.  It’s just a drop off / pick-up and the ginormous driver tells us we’ve got a five minute stop, smoke ’em if you got em.  I pass for now.  The driver goes into the local agent and starts moving three large boxes out of the door about a block from where we stopped.  He man-handles one over to the bus, and BLAM!  drops it on the ground next to us.  He then proceeds to huff and puff his way the 50 yards to the other two.

Apparently the first one wore him out as he now has the boxes on a make-shift, home-made hand cart.  He’s rolling this thing (it’s one piece of iron bent in half for the handle and is only like 2 feet tall!) and the two boxes on it over to the bus.  Picture this:  an average height driver, weighs in easily over 300 pounds, doubled over pulling this little hand-cart with two large boxes on it.

Of course one falls off the cart on the ground and starts this slow motion roll down the hill (I can hear in my head the sound of the breaking china on each flop!  ROFLMAO).  He looks at it, it takes a couple more rolls down the hill from him and comes to a “gentle” rest…on the friggin YELLOW LINE with basically bumper to bumper traffic stopped for him and his show.  What does he do?  You got it…keep on trucking fat boy!  He gets the first one over to the bus, kicks it off the cart, then, because it’s easier, picks the cart UP and walks it to the other box in the middle of the street that now traffic is navigating around!

So he gets the other box on the cart and wheels it over to the bus (only drop it off the cart once while doing this in the space of 100 feet or so!  A new world record!!)  At last all the cargo is “safe and secure” about our bus and he manages to slide in behind the wheel (huffing and puffing like the dragon!)… then he says rather loudly to no one in particular (and I do directly quote here!):

“How’d ya like that little show folks?  You know damn well if those were packed with chocolate I would have taken extra special care of ’em!”

And off we go to Bean-town.

Arrive Boston South Station:  (approx) 7:15pm

Boston South Station is a jumble of multiple transportation services; bus, rail, commuter rail etc.  The good news is the departure gate for New York City is only two gates away.  The bad news?  “Welcome to Peter Pans transportation service”…great…full buss.  Tinkerbell, wanna whip up some magic dust?  No such luck.

Depart Boston South Station:  (approx) 8:00pm

The only thing of note from Boston to New York… somewhere on I95 south bound was this most excellent Lamborghini rag-top, orange, cruisin’…not flying mind you…but you knew he was going somewhere.

Arrive NYC:  (approx)12:20am

(Okay..my blog, bear with me for a moment, cover your ears)

HOLY FUCKING SHIT BATMAN WHAT A CRAZY GODDAMN GINORMOUS FUCKING STATION.

Okay…sorry, but I feel better.  For anyone who’s never been to NYC’s bus / train station (yes, we ARE talking ON Long Island…as in DOWNTOWN MO-FO!)… it’s three stories…UNDERGROUND!  You get off the bus “underground” into the terminal.  Okay fine…three hour layover…smoke break!  Go find the escalators to escape the underground hell (BTW…I am NOT dark enough to go through there again at the wee hours of the morning, let me tell you that!)

Kewl…up one floor, there the exit sign.  WTF!?!?!  Point to another escalator?  Yeah dude, it’s New York..it ain’t working, take the stairs!  (Mind you I have my laptop bag packed full of gear, plus a ginormous Marlboro bag that weighs in at like 2 1/2 tons (thank you Mother for giving me one with WHEELS!!).  Drag the sucker up the stairs.

“Yo dude!  Dude!  Hey you need directions or a taxi or something?”

“Um…yeah Dawg, where’s the pisser and where do I smoke and are they in the same place?”

“Oh..go that way man, bathroom’s over there too”

(Like I said, guess I’m just too white! ROFLMAO-PMP)

Again, my blog..my apologies…

HOLY FUCKING SHIT BATMAN…TOTO THERE IS NO FUCKING WAY WE’RE IN KANSAS ANYMORE!

In case you were wondering…yeah that IS the ginormous screen of Time Square!  This literally took my breath away for a moment.  This is bumper to bumper traffic…most all of them honking because they’re move about as fast as a snail breaking wind!  And hot?!?  Holy cow you can’t imagine how just everything emanates heat even this time of day (morning).  I mean the concrete barricades were HOT to the touch!

Couple of quick smokes (and I only had to give up to some very drunk, very old Jewish lady!  LOL)  Time to retreat back into the “safety” of the way underground.  Down two flights into concorse B.  WTF?!?!  Isn’t where I came into gate C27???  Um..okay…this is all under construction so the only way out is back up the stairs (whoo hooo escalator is working on this one!).

Ah ha…found my mistake…took a right when I should have zig-zagged left.  Silly country bumpkin!

Kewl..concourse C…C27…C27 arrivals!?!  WTF?!?  Of course nothing’s posted…and of course none of the departure / arrive TV screens work down here!  Okay…back up and out.  Frig it…found a bar that was open…let’s get a beer and rest the tired arse for a bit!

One Sam Adams please.  Mmmm love that fresh Charles River water beer!  Okay..half of that gone and on an empty stomach I think I should go have a smoke and some “fresh” air.  Comon’ bags, let’s roll!  Back out to the nut-farm / rat-race!

Okay..so let’s wander back down (and down again) to concourse C and figure this out.  ah..here comes one of NYC’s finest Port Authority Police.  “Get out the station is closing!”  “What?!?!”  Um, but I have a connecting bus leaving in two hours?”  “All departures leave from gate D27, you need to either be outside or in the departure area”

What the fuck?!?!?

Okay… take 15 minutes up and down working (mostly broke) escalators and find the departure gate.  Kewl.  Okay it’s just past one in the morning, I’m in New York and I have nothing to do for almost two more hours!  Great.  Hey…why are new people coming in and some leaving if the station’s closed?

Hmmm.. me thinks it’s time to investigate!  Ah ha!  Take the stairs up (of course the escalator up is broken!  Works going down though to save me from dragging my bag WITH gravity!), then straight over hidden behind the stairwell on the right…the “side” stairwell to the main entrance!  Freedom!!

Rhut rho…NYC Port Pigs…one eyes me…make sure you have your ticket if you want to come back in!  Very nice gentleman, “Yessir” says I and out I go.

(More in the next installment)