Stops 26 – 30: WI and finally MN

In Chicago I said goodbye to Baron’s and boarded another Greyhound. It’s safe to say that each bus I’ve boarded throughout this trip has made me want to go back to the previous one, but I was so close to the end that nothing could get my spirits down at this point. Even though I was the first to board in Chicago, the bus was over half full already. Every row had at least one occupant, save one pair of seats in the middle of the bus. Naturally I made my way to them, while asking myself why everyone was avoiding them. It didn’t take me long to figure out. Picture the emergency exit door over the wing on an airplane, but instead of an airtight seal and extra legroom, I had a visible opening between the door and the rest of the bus with less legroom and no footrests. No worries, I prefer cooler temperatures and the outside air should do a good job of balancing the excessive heat of prior buses, or so I thought. I spread out my stuff and passed out.

Cut to some time later and I’ve awoken FREEZING. It takes a lot for me to get cold and that’s especially true while I’m asleep. I dug my sweatshirt out of may bag and put that on followed by my coat and began contemplating stuffing my scant remaining extra clothes into the gap in the wall in an attempt to arrest the flow of -5° air rushing into the bus. I ended up deciding against it and managed to doze until our next stop. I tossed and turned for a bit before deciding I wasn’t going to get back to sleep again.

A few minutes before our scheduled arrival, the bus parked in Minneapolis. I had left Boston almost 35 hours before, ridden on 4 different buses, driven by 6 different drivers. Leaving the bus, my thoughts of “I finally made it” were quickly chased away by the fact that in terms of mileage for the trip, I was just at the halfway point. I still had almost 12 hours of flights and time to spend in airports ahead of me.