Night Bus Math

I, seemingly, took the worst* bus trip of my life, a 9.5 night bus from Bozeman to Bismarck. But I emerged & arrived feeling positive & happy. Why?

Let’s do the math → 

-1 → The bus was $191 and the pickup was @ 2 am in the Walmart parking lot (this really should be three -1s)

+1 → The motel I had stayed at let me kill the late-night time in their “lobby”, which was just across the street from Walmart!

-1 → The bus arrived 20 min late (you really start to question your life choices when you think you’ve been “abandoned” in a Walmart parking lot in the middle of the night)

+1 → The bus driver seemed to be neither crazy nor uncomfortably eccentric!

-1 → A passenger exited the bus and told the driver “yo, I think the old man in the back just vomited” 🤮

+1 → I got my own seat row!

-1 → The only seat row available was in the back 🤮

+1 → The driver confronted the something-wasn’t-right-with-him old man, and it turns out it was just a water spill! 💧

-1 → I had to transfer to a different bus at 4am in Billings, and the Billings station is quite grim @ 4am (this really should be two -1s)

-1 → The bus I had to transfer to was 45 minutes late (you really start to question your life choices when killing time in a grim bus station in the middle of Montana in the middle of the night)

+1 → I was able to get my own seat row on the connecting bus to Bismarck!

+1 → I was neither decapitated nor eaten on the bus!

-1 → I really didn’t sleep much the entire 9.5+ hour trip

+1 → I was awake to see the stunning scenery of eastern Montana & western North Dakota!

+1 → Bismarck has an actual bus station (sorry, “depot”) that’s really clean & nice, meaning it would also be a great, staffed place for my bus out of town!

-1 → My motel was a 3.3 mile walk from the bus station

+1 → The walk to the motel was mostly along a bike path & nice neighborhoods!

-1 → The walk was mostly uphill

+1 → That means it’s downhill on the way back!

So, (9 x -1) + (10 x 1) = 1 → The math checks out as positive! Hence the 👍 reflection Tim at the end!

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Posted from here

_{*I once took a bus in China that was supposed to be 22 hours that ended up taking 48 hours, but that’s an in-person tale}