My New York Trip

How did this crazy and scary adventure begin? The year before I had met some really nice people in Canada that I had known for many years. We had became very good friends over the years and when I was invited to meet everyone in the mountains out of Bancroft in 2000, I decided to go. The little town I live in has a population of 5,000 people and 10,000 if you count the Inmates. When you are a woman from a little town in West Texas and only been on a plane a few times  in your life, the thought to going to Canada was like a dream come true. The trip was such an awesome experience, that when I was invited to go back the next year to see Niagara Falls, I jumped on the opportunity to see some more of the United States.

The trip was nice and pretty uneventful. The actual visit was really just a nice experience. We did a lot of site seeing and as you can see in the photos, Niagara Falls was one of the prettiest places I have ever seen in my life. I got to see Lake Erie and many lighthouses. I saw places where my forefathers probably stood  a few hundred years ago.

I remember the Tuesday morning as clearly as I remember the clear blue water of Niagara. I was sitting on the bed tying my shoes and getting ready for a trip into New York City. I was so excited about seeing the Statue of Liberty and the hustle and bustle of New York City that I seen for years on television and the movies. The rest about the events of 9/11 are history as you know.

I started trying to get back home. Leeann took me to the airport in Buffalo to see if I could get a flight out. There were hundreds of planes parked. It looked like a giant parking lot, but for airplanes. The wings were nearly touching, they were so close together. It was kind of an eerie feeling. I remember everyone was in this panic state, pretty much like me.

I ended up in a motel close to the airport in Buffalo to wait for the next available flight. Leeann had family in New York City and had to go there to check on them. I tried calling the train station or bus station, but they were all shut down. I couldn't rent a car because they would only let me take it to Mississippi and that was still too far from home. I ended up staying there alone until finally Saturday morning, they opened the bus station for travel.

I caught a bus out of Buffalo at 1:30 in the afternoon and headed back to Texas. I met Anna in Cincinnati, Ohio. She was there visiting her children when all this had broke out and was heading back to Houston. She became my traveling buddy for the duration of the trip. I had never rode a bus before and that in itself was an experience. Everyone was so nice though and trying to help us get back home. They were running extra buses and you only had time to change buses from one stop to the next. There were six of us traveling together. Anna and I were the only ones going to Texas and the rest were going to California and various locations.

One event on the bus that sticks in my mind was out of Memphis, Tennessee. The buses were so crowed and people were even sitting in the isles or standing up. I'm sure there are rules against this but we were just happy to be going home. Out of Memphis, we stopped and changed buses once again. When we got on the bus, there was this young blonde woman on the bus sleeping. I found a seat across from her with a lady that let me sit down, but the young woman would not let Anna sit down. I managed to wake her up and make such a fuss that the driver made her get up and share the seat. By the time everyone had boarded, all the seats were once again full and the isle, so sooner or later, she would of had to share her seat. The young lady continued to be very disrespectful and just cruel to Anna. I'm assuming either because Anna was old or black.  Either reason was intolerable and I ended up making the young woman really mad until she got off the bus. I didn't really care. We had come a long way and been through hell and I was not going to let a degenerate treat this old woman so badly. I guess I was amazed that some people are still out there that are prejudice. One thing I know, the fake nails came in real handy in that incident....(smile)

I also remember us coming through Hope, Arkansas and the driver which was not familiar with the route got lost on Clinton Drive. We drove out this little road a little ways from town looking for the bus stop and had to turn around . I remember us pulling up, backing up, pulling up, backing up over and over until the huge bus was heading back into town. We finally found the bus stop and picked up another passenger and headed out the interstate to continue our trip south. We then were pulled over by state troopers and they came on the bus with guns to make sure we were not being hijacked. Apparently a citizen saw the bus in an area it should not have been and phoned the authorities. It was pretty scary but everyone seemed more amused that they stopped us about a mile from McDonalds considering we had been on the bus for hours and only able to eat out of vending machines. The troopers checked our bags and identification and let the bus go. But we still did not have food.

After 40 plus hours on a bus and no real food, I finally arrived in Abilene Texas, four hours behind schedule. I was so happy to see my husband sitting in the parking lot in our old Ford pickup. I was so overjoyed to see him there, even with him complaining about how tired he was from sitting there waiting on me, that all I could do was smile. I just let him grumble about no sleep and waved bye to my friends, then crawled in the pickup and headed for home.