The Bus Ride Part 2

Once the bus left Thunder Bay I thought that time would go faster now that I had someone to talk to. I was wrong. I now just had to watch my friends suffer while I suffered myself. Winnipeg was the next stop. The only thing we could do was pray for Canada to shrink.

We arrived in Winnipeg for another bus transfer. The security at the bus station was just short of an airport's security. If this surprises you look up what happened on the Winnipeg Greyhound a few years back. Actually I'll save you the time, someone was decapitated. As if this didn't worry us enough we still had to go through a security check and as tree planters, who will be spending the summer in the woods, we obviously each had packed a camping knife. William and I made it through the check without any hiccups, but unfortunately Colin's knife was found and taken away before he could get on the bus. Luckily he had a second one packed that they didn't find.

From then on the bus ride went pretty smoothly until a 2:00 am stop in Saskatchewan countryside. The bus driver told us we had 15 minutes to stretch our legs and get fresh air. Since none of us could sleep we got off the bus to stretch for a little bit. We were the only ones to get off the bus since everyone else was asleep and after five minutes of stretching the bus started to drive off, but we weren't on it yet. We stood in the parking lot questioning what was going on. 

"He's probably just turning around." William said. 

"Yeah, he told us we had 15 minutes." Colin replied.

We stood there and watched the bus slowly drive away. When we realized he wasn't turning around our stomachs dropped. We thought that we were stranded in Saskatchewan when suddenly the brake lights on the bus came on and it began to reverse back towards us. We walked up to the bus and the bus driver yelled at us for a good five minutes about how we could have been left behind. Afterwards we casually walked back to our seats and laughed it off. 

From that point nothing really happened except for the wheels on the bus going round and round for another 15 or so hours. Until we got to Edmonton anyways. Getting to Edmonton was a big deal. It meant that we only had about six hours left until we arrived in Grand Prairie. We just had to switch buses and we were on our way. 

Little did we know that the last six hours of this trip were going to be much worse than the previous 49 I had already endured. The bus we had switched to had no power outlets and our phones/iPods were dead. So no music. On top of that the over head compartments were very old and made a lot of noise when we were on a bumpy road, and believe me when I say that it was a bumpy six hours...

Despite the mind rattling noise, the lack of music, and the bumpy roads we finally made it. It felt amazing to get off that bus and into a hotel. From that point on I told myself that I would walk to where I needed to be before getting on another Greyhound bus, but unfortunately at the end of the season I was wrong, but I'll get to that another time. 

The next day William, Colin, and I embarked on our journey into the tree planting life. We had no idea really what we were heading into or what to expect. This was just the beginning. 

The Bus Ride Part 1

Last summer I decided that the best summer job I could think of was tree planting. Don't get me wrong, it was an awesome time and I loved almost every minute of it, but it was the most difficult work I have ever done. 

Before the season began, we were advised that we should physically prepare ourselves for the summer with a workout plan designed specifically for tree planters. Of course I didn't really listen and ignored it (Upon arrival I found that everyone else did too...) 

Anyways the school year had come to a close and I was about to head off to northern Alberta to start plugging trees into the ground with my friend, William. However William was still up in Thunder Bay and we had the take the bus. So the first leg of the trip, about 18 hours, I was by myself on the Greyhound having as much fun on a bus as anyone possibly could. Which for those of you who have been on a long bus ride, is not that much fun at all. 

Eventually I did make it to Thunder Bay and met up with William. I figured the rest of the bus ride wouldn't be so bad since I'd have someone to talk to, but regardless of what we had to entertain ourselves with, the last 37 hours on the bus would definitely not be looked forward to. 

While waiting in the Thunder Bay station for the bus to get on it's way, William and I ran into someone heading to the exact same tree planting camp as we were. His name was Colin, and to our surprise he was going to be planting trees with us in the exact same crew! So for the rest of the bus ride we all did our best to keep each other sane. We left Thunder Bay and began our great journey west.