DAY THREE - May 24, 2004

Day Three began after a very nice but occasionally interrupted sleep for rest stops and/or layovers. Mobile, Alabama began the day in an annoying way since we had originally thought we could get the same seats back, but since we had to change buses unexpectedly once again (our former bus had something wrong with it), someone snagged the back seat and began to talk explicitly to some love interest on his cell phone. I fell asleep again until we arrived in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Martin and I got a small breakfast there and I ended up spilling my coffee all over my computer bag, which is very luckily waterproof.

Between Baton Rouge and Lafayette, Louisiana, we traveled over swampland. The highway itself was held up by concrete pillars over the swamp waters and at one point the swamp got a LOT bigger, obviously something you could not walk across. We stopped in Lafayette for about ten minutes and I smoked and talked to a couple people, one who was looking for someplace else to eat (she ended up walking toward a seafood place down the street), two that had asked me for cigarettes, one of which was very nice and asked me where I was going and talked about his situation where Greyhound was rerouting him through Lafayette only to go back in the direction he was coming from.

Louisiana got somewhat boring after that trip except for the Lake Charles area. There were two big bridges that went over rivers and oil refineries and it was very beautiful in its ugliness. If I ever make a list of places to simply see and not visit, this will be one of the places.

Our passage into Texas involved a longer-than-intended stop at a convenience store in Orange, Texas where Martin and I both got into our bags, him for clothing and me for ciggies, and we picked up a family of four who rode with us all the way to Phoenix. Martin and I switched around with the guy who had previously stolen our back seat to give the family the back two seats and we watched the less-than-interesting plains of Texas go by. We saw a snip of Beaumont to the north but that was about it for the interesting sights until Houston. Contrary to popular belief, there didn't seem to be too many oil refineries, but then again we were only viewing what was on either side of I-10.

Houston, Texas started long before we got to the metropolitan area with an urban sprawl much like New York City. When it finally came into view it was quite a treat. Houston looked like it was in pieces spread out for at least 30 miles of roads, stores, and skyscraper bunches that were not all in the central area. The highway we traveled gave us a prime view of downtown where they had very modern buildings with curves, mirrored glass, and weird angles. At the bus station it was quite clear that was pretty much what the city had going for itself due to the fact the streets were horribly dirty and the smaller buildings were very run-down. One street urchin started in on a conversation with me, probably leading me into somehow giving him money but not quite getting there since the conversation involved me being much more stern with little friendliness. Another guy came by and stood near us but I can't really say he was contributing to the conversation because he was hav ing his own argument with whoever was visiting in his head. Martin came out and told me we had to leave before the first guy got to where he was going with his conversation.

Upon reboarding we procured another mess of people, including two siblings, one of which was so huge he took up both seats. I swear the bus listed on his side when we got going again. More plains abounded after leaving the Houston sprawl and when my eyes got heavy from endless grass and road signs I took a nap until we got to San Antonio.

Arriving in San Antonio, Texas was very cool since we got to see what the Alamo was really all about in one glimpse. They make it look so big in the pictures, like it's in Texas and it's so important, but it wasn't much bigger than what Martin calls a shotgun shack. At the station we got a different driver who decided that since Martin and I had an Ameripass, we had to go to the ticket counter and get an actual ticket to at least Phoenix. I mentioned that we haven't had to do that yet during the trip thus far and his answer was "There's a first time for everything". We learned what kind of driver this guy would be as soon as he started his announcements, telling everyone who had their feet in the aisles to get them out or he would kick them off the bus. He illustrated this by personally picking up people's feet after the announcement. As we started driving, one member of the family of four in the back came up and told the bus driver something was leaking onto his family's heads and we pulled back into the station after already getting out of there late. They found it was their own water bottle leaking onto them and we got going once again. Day 3 ended with the mountains starting to make their appearance in the dark as we fell asleep.