One of the places I have been that has kept me away from here is New York with our son and daughter-in-law and grandson. We went for his 16th birthday.
It was, in Al's words, an "experience".
One night exemplifies it best. We had been in Manhattan all day so were weary and decided to go back to our apartment in New Jersey so as to crash a little earlier than the other nights. Thinking we would be back by 8:30 ish.
We went to the Port Authority which is a huge bus station at 42nd and 8th and asked the INFORMATION lady which bus to get on. Then we asked her again. Just to be sure.
We went to that number and waited for 40 minutes to get on and away we went.
After going through the Lincoln Tunnel, the bus took an entirely different route than what we had taken before. We kept thinking he would turn TOWARDS our apartment but he kept turning AWAY from our apartment.
Slowly but surely, the bus emptied.
Not as slowly but certainly as surely, we realized we were on the WRONG bus.
Especially when he got to the end of the line; we were the only 5 people on it.
The bus driver said the lady at the station gave us the wrong number bus. He also said we should have ASKED HIM. He said he had been driving 48 years and this was his last few months. He said after he turned the bus around and headed back that he would help us get home (like he would have in the first place if we had just ASKED HIM!)
" Always ask the bus driver." he said.
He clearly thought we were idiots.
But he was New Jersey kind of nice about it.
He (literally) wrote us a note and drove us to a dark and lonely spot and told us to get a certain bus and give the driver the note and we would get home.
That is what we did. A bus came. We flagged it down (actually I leaped into the middle of the road and waved my arms liked a lunatic while screaming "STOP"). We gave him the note which probably said, "Please take these imbeciles to their apartment and do not ask them for money because I am not even sure they can count."
He took us right to our stop.
We were home by 10:30 ish.
We learned from that experience. We learned which bus we should have taken and did so from then on. We learned that there are men who drive NYC and NJ buses for 48 years. We learned to ask sooner rather than later. We learned behind that NJ accent is a warm heart. We learned that phones are great tools to verify that you are going the WRONG WAY. We learned that when 5 cell phones die all at about the same time life still goes on. We learned AGAIN that there are good people everywhere.
We learned that we were pretty darn good at being idiots together.
We learned that we could get lost and found all in one night.
We learned that sometimes even when the journey is different than you expect, you can lean into it and laugh a little and learn a lot.
Alex was right. It WAS an "experience".
And now it's a blog.
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