Homeward Bound

I have had two early mornings over the last two nights. On Tuesday morning Stephen Phayre dropped me down to the local port to catch the commuter ferry to Seattle. An enjoyable cruise during which I filled in my Canadian customs form (2%) and slept (98%). There were some thoughts of breakfast but with my dicky stomach of the last three days, I wasn't sure I was quite ready to test the waters (pardon pun) quite yet, at least not before the customs shed at the border. I got a taxi to the bus station - not in the mood for adventure at 7.30 in the morning - keeping an eye out for a post box to post Sheila's map back to her in Connecticut. I still had it in my bag having forgotten to give it back to her the week earlier in NYC. The taxi decision was made easier by the fact that my bag now felt like lead, this extra weight caused by two bottles of ranch dressing bought the previous day at Walmart in Silverdale Washington. I'm not sure how two small bottles of the stuff can have made so much difference but I wasn't up for deliberating. I had some dollars and I had the ranch dressing and although I had plenty of time to walk, the combination of the previous two made a compelling argument. Taxi. !!!!

I didn't have a post office though and I made a mental note to find one in Vancouver rather than wander off to find one now.

The bus journey was mercifully uneventful. A rather giddy young lady who had spent a week in Spokane on a new chapter in her life only to decide it didn't suit her and come home was waiting in Seattle having waited in Spokane for eight hours for the bus and then four hours in Seattle - what is a 5 1/2 hour drive eventually took her 23 hours. This is the strange way greyhound works sometimes. Her level of excitement became more pronounced wit each stop.

We passed through the town (city ?) of Bellingham Washington which claims to harbour the Alaska Ferry - I'm not quite sure that this is true or, if it is, who would get a ferry from Washington State to Alaska. Maybe I missed something.

Apparently the Canadian border officials have got meaner recently and now they're trying to be more American than the American border guards. Having never been to Canada my only experience of the Canadian border was the Graham Nash song "Immigration Man" and they seemed pretty mean in that. It's quite unbecoming of them - my advice is that they should stick to what they're good at and be nice Canadian border guards. That said, the procedure was fairly painless. We all piled off the bus, collected our bags including my "boulder" with the ranch dressing and queued up to be asked difficult questions. My interviewer was rather confused about how long I was staying but seemed to finally understand or, at least accept, the odd eccentricity that made up Josh's Itinerary and sent me on my way. We all piled back onto the bus and waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. It turns out there was a Chinese dude being investigated. There's always one. I guess there has to be just to make sure you don't think it's too easy getting into Canada. Those pesky Canadians.

My reason for visiting Vancouver was, in fact, very logical. Vancouver is right there at the border. You're looking at the map and you could skip from Seattle to Vancouver. By the looks of the map, you'd think the border crossing was right there in downtown Vancouver. Which made it only right that, as I had got this far, it was only right that I should visit another almost-cousin Siobhaun and her husband Greg, as well as Kath O'Kelly whose family grew up at the top of our road (and we grew up at the bottom of theirs) and who now lives in Vancouver with Andrew and their four kids. When they moved out west a few years back, we put them in touch with Siobhaun and Greg and their daughter Addie and the two families are now great friends. This was a great opportunity to meet more than one group of friends at a time and The Last Supper was planned - no connection between this and the more famous Last Supper is intended, certainly not linking the two events' guests of honor.

The investigations into the Chinese dude knocked us back a bit in schedule but that was fine because Vancouver is, like, right on the border, right ? Wrong. But eventually I got there and Siobhaun, having put off at least one meeting to make it, met me at the station in, apparently, one of the city's dodger districts (they always seem to be in the dodgy neighborhoods) armed with pizza. She drove, I ate and then she dropped me downtown. I spent the afternoon walking around Vancouver, posting the envelope, and drinking hot chocolate in Starbucks (again - I was dead set against this place but I'm coming around to its merits now) before meeting up with Siobhaun, Greg, Kath, Andrew and all he children.

Yesterday started early again - my first flight of two was at 6am and Andrew very kindly dropped me to the airport at 4. The high excitement of the evening before had meant their youngest had been up all night with a temperature so Andrew had not slept all night. I, meanwhile, had slept like a log. Vancouver Airport is very nice, for an airport. I did USA immigration again and was in plenty of time for my flight. For some reason, I was unaware Chicago was on the side of a lake - it looked great in the morning sunshine as we flew in to wait for the transfer to Dublin. In fact,even with the large complicated bulk of that airport to manouevre about, I still had a six hour wait at my gate - a good lunch break. Irish planes always seem to be thrown in the mankiest terminals several miles from the best restaurants (or, in fact, the best anything) but I found some lunch, found my gate and waited patiently.

Another harmless but pretty boring film and a few meals later and I was back in Dublin. My dad broke his rule of not picking anybody up from the airport and we went home to his place for breakfast. The jet lag hit at about 5 that evening but hasn't been too bad. I've discovered various things missing from my suitcase but nothing major and I definitely managed to survive the bus rides unscathed and with all property intact. I just tend to leave things in different places.

And normal service has resumed, although accompanied by nicer weather than when I departed. The buskers on grafton street seem to be noisier but otherwise it seems to be business as usual. The Spanish students have begun to invade the buses again and I've been rehearsing music with junior and leaving cert music practical students. I already have a few gigs in the book for the next few weeks and the organ restoration fun(d) continues in the church in earnest. No rest for the wicked !!!

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Most of the last three paragraphs were written a few days after the first half of the post which is when I'm writing here too. I'm on a different kind of bus now - a more familiar Dublin Bus double-decker No. 7 heading to Dun Laoghaire to see the Irish Jungmanns in Killiney having worked my way around the United States of America visiting most of the rest of Scott's family. Emilie Conway asked me yesterday by text; "u miss America ?" I replied; "no, I found it. Straight through mayo, next land, you can't miss it". I don't miss it yet. There are lots of reasons I love living in Ireland and lots of reasons I love my new house in Kilmainham but I would expect that I would want to go exploring the States again. Might not happen for a while but it's there in the back of my mind for sure. It's given me some ideas - for work, for song lyrics, for future holiday opportunities, for contacts - but on the wider question of what to do next, I've not had a eurekA moment this time although a lot of people have given me advice and I've taken it all in, I hope. I'm in a little bit of a rut on this one but I'm staying as positive as I can and trying to address faults as I see them - too lazy being the main one - so as to address improving On them. Kath O'Kelly and I chated about a book called "The Artists Way" and I want her to know that I used my new iPad toy to download it at Vancouver Airport and am working my way into it. It seems an interesting course and I am looking forward to working through it over the next few months. I've read the introduction so far so it's early days. It suggests writing morning pages every day - the Description of them sounds very like what I've been doing in this blog but neither you nor I am supposed to read these notes. I hope I have the discipline to stick to it. Bits of it sound a bit hippy but if they work for unlocking stuff then I'm up for giving it a go. About to miss my stop - will let you know how it goes.

The Big One

Dear Greyhound Customer Service,

Please train your staff to know which routes take the discovery pass !

Please train your staff to remember that some of your passengers are tourists; visitors to the united states of America who have not been there before and who do not know the ins and outs of your quite complicated system. It's also worth pointing out that some of your staff don't either.

Otherwise, it should be noted that despite these small points of feedback, I've had a very enjoyable time on this trip and, for your part in this, you should be thanked very muchly.

All the best,

Josh Johnston

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Last time we spoke, I had been traveling overnight to Nashville Tennessee having travelled down the east coast from Boston.

We arrived into Nashville with a two hour gap before the comparatively short journey to Evansville Indiana where I was stopping to visit my brother-in-law's parents. In Richmond bus station, I had overheard a conversation between three ladies of three separate generations. The elderly concerned grandmother, the doting and well-behaved aunt and the somewhat dopey younger girl (grand-daughter, it turned out who was dopey on a number of different levels) and they were discussing the ups and downs of their family's checkered past detailing mistakes made by all and sundry and leaving no stone unturned, throwing particular scorn at the girls' mother who wasn't present. . As younger girl went off to have her third cigarette (smoking opportunities gain value - to smokers - the longer you are on a greyhound bus) I chatted about nothing in particular to the two other women who were wondering when the bus would arrive - eventually left 45 minutes late - and it transpired that Jen (dopey youngster) and I were going to same place.

Concerned grandmother to josh:

"do you think you could make sure Jen gets off at the right stop ?"

Josh:

"I guess so"

A two-hour gap is a nice comfortable gap for breakfast. Not entirely sure what this would entail, I nonetheless had ideas along the sausages / bacon / bagel combination line and so it was with tears in my eyes that I read the sign on the cafe door - "grill closed until 11am" (ten minutes after my bus departed). I settled on a package sandwich which was actually pretty good and a lot fresher than the packaging implied. The bus was 50 minutes late but I did not revisit the food idea as I had eaten the sandwich by this stage.

The bus that arrived was a different design to the others I had travelled on this far and while there was no reason to fear for safety or even comfort, this was the beginning of a slow dawning that the next few days would mark a great decrease in technology options available to passengers. No wi-fi. No power sockets. The continued arrivals of white buses over the next week (as opposed to silver buses) brought groans of despair from countless passengers who had obviously started their journey on the east coast like myself and who assumed the silver buses were the only types of buses. By the end of the trek, there were four coaches identifiable;

Posh silver - wi-fi and sockets

White - wi-fi and sockets but sockets didn't work very well.

White - no wi-fi or sockets but by far the most comfortable bus

White - no wi-fi or sockets, everyone squashed in, pile 'em high, sell 'em quick

These buses tended to run east to west - i think they obviously must migrate west as newer fleet comes in.

The absence of wi-fi definitely made a long journey longer so the two hours to Evansville felt like a marathon. Somehow or other, I missed the stop at Clarksville (think i was asleep - particularly annoying as I had a song I needed to sing at that point) and minus phone battery and wi-fi I found it very hard to work out where I was (google maps is wonderful) so the trip felt very long. It also felt very long for poor Bill and Mary who were waiting for me at the station and had left their house before the phone message i left to say I was most likely going to be an hour or so late. I managed to make sure Jen got off before finding Bill and Mary. We headed back to kentucky and had a lovely night with them eating steak at the finest steakhouse in Owensboro Kentucky (which is a lot better than it sounds). We also had a great Skype video chat with Becky, Scott and Aoife in Killiney which was super for all concerned. Got to catch up with Jungmann family news as well as see the philpott ranch that I'd heard so much about but never seen.

A good sleep and a mass recharge of all my various devices and I was ready to head back up to Indiana for the beginning of what has been since christened the "big one" and with good reason.

Between 1.30 on Thursday and 2.30 on Saturday I was on a bus or at a station either grabbing something to eat or queuing up for another bus. Some people might find this or even the idea of this hideous but I enjoyed the adventure of the idea. There were plenty of people to talk to throughout and many people were crossing multiple legs with me. Las Vegas was a common destination and there were many tales told of fun and games there. The bus arrived (a white one without wi-fi) and the two of us piled on. The first person I met at this point was coming home to Arkansas from Las Vegas and had been left in Evansville by his friend because this guy didn't want him to drive back on his own. He warned me about greyhound journeys and the fact that Americans can be mean. He told me of a woman he saw being robbed on an overnighter having left her money in her bra. He saw but didn't realize what was happening until she reported it in the morning due to the half light by which stage the perpetrator had long since departed the bus. I made a mental note not to be flashing things about and to carry my hand luggage with me but was a little tetchy for most of that leg. After the rest stop at Mount Vernon Illinois (first McDonalds of too many) four burly men who all looked very dodgy at first glance got onto the bus and sat beside and around me. A little flustered but resolutely staying as calm as possible, I kept myself to myself even as the guy beside me asked if my phone was an iPhone. About five minutes later another of the dudes suggested that I might be Irish . . . .

"yes"

"and what are you doing in illinois ?"

So I told the four of them the full story (I figured we had plenty of time and so I told them the FULL story) during which they stopped and listened with wide-eyed amazement, stopping every now and then to say "wow" and "really ?". Suddenly I was totally part of the party, with the Irish being poked fun at as much as all other nationalities in the group. Think Arlo Guthrie on the group w bench. In the space of an hour, we had life stories of all concerned and, more importantly, what had them on the bus and where they were going. My initial friend coming back from Las Vegas, one going to Las Vegas, one traveling hundreds of miles to see his daughter having lost his wife after going to jail but now trying to mend fences with ex, daughter and foster a new relationship in Memphis Tennessee. Others too - can't remember everyone.

"New beginnings" was a common thread across all the fellow passengers that i met on the various buses - setting up new homes, new jobs, new lives and the travels taking place across a huge distance. I found this very interesting particularly as so much of the adventure is about re-evaluating my life and what I'm doing with it. In some way, many people found my tales entertaining and I found myself wondering whether it was mutually beneficent - I didn't HAVE to do the journey so, although it was very long, it seemed easier because I was observing these people who felt they did HAVE to do it and sometimes did HAVE to do it more than once a year. Likewise, it's possible that the eccentricity of what I was doing axe their journey shorter too - there was a significant feeling of for one, for all about all the legs (particularly the later ones).

St. Louis Toodle-oo

At St. Louis we got a grey bus (hooray) but our joy was short-lived when we discovered that our wi-fi was in payoff to working air-conditioning so when we arrived in Kansas City we were all loaded off and back onto a white bus.

One of the people I was chatting to longest was David. And although I wasn't sitting next to him from the beginning, I first noticed him in St. Louis. We had an excellent ongoing conversation from Denver to Salt Lake City where he told me about his views on everything: local, regional and national politics, marriage, the economy, foreign policy, the EU, drugs policy, and, of course, greyhound rules and regulations. These are generally informed by experience which has contributed to him having a fascinating backstory. Having just worked for 9 months at a residential drug clinic in New Jersey, he was on his way to Nevada to resume a job he left some years ago to get married. All my life's a circle.

Everything's up-to-date in Kansas City

What can we learn from Kansas City ? Mostly that it's not in Kansas which totally surprised me. After we changed buses onto the manky but cool one (in terms of temperature), we continued on through actual Kansas through Topeka and Lawrence before our driver Annie retired to go to bed. This was fortunate as most of the coach might have died from laughter if she had continued on the bus any longer. I have spoken about greyhound drivers before. They all have things they have to say but all like to be distinctive about their performance of these lines. There are a few basic rules about traveling on the bus. You don't smoke on board. You don't drink alcoholic beverages inboard. You don't partake in illegal drugs on board. You don't speak loudly and you don't use personal audio devices without headphones (and if the driver can hear it then it's too loud). On the journey between Richmond and Nashville we had to get off the bus at 5am to allow it to be swept through. Shortly before we arrived in Knoxville Tennessee our driver turned on the mic and started singing Smooth Operator which was a bit weird and creepy at first but was actually quite charming and a slow and gentle way to wake us all up.

Joining the bus in St. louis, Funky driver Annie was very proud of her re-worked script and rapped it eloquently often repeating it a number of times at each station. We would shortly be driving through Kansas and it might get windy and blow the bus a bit but not to worry, she wasn't asleep and she had it "all . . . . .locked . . . . . Down". Or the other one was the basic rule that if you wanted to smoke, you wanted to walk. And again she would repeat everything at least three times before leaving us to our own devices. By Salinas Kansas, when Annie was leaving us, the back of the bus had become increasingly giddy with loud guffaws on the "all locked down" line. Her speech was the same in salinas but it had slowed down considerably. She sounded tired and we were not altogether upset she was getting to go home either.

Rod's colleague in Richmond had pointed out that the Midwest was the main reason God had invented planes and my brother Luke had pointed out that while it might be nice to see sights along the way, the same sight after 8 hours might prove a bit boring. Both comments were valid. Bill and Mary who met in Topeka Kansas told me much the same thing. Kansas was certainly very flat and had a lot of nothingness to it and it was very nice that a lot of it was passed overnight.

I don't think we're in Kansas anymore

I had two options at Denver bus station and with a half-hour changeover didn't have enough time to do both

1) get some breakfast

2) Check that all was ok to use my discovery pass between Ontario and Bend Oregon

I decided that the latter option was prudent, particularly as the Bend / Seattle conundrum had not been satisfactorily solved yet. This dilemma involved my trip to Bend to see a cousin of Scott's who is also a Unitarian minister and is also living with another Unitarian minister. Both have expressed an enjoyment of my music and I thought maybe there might be an opportunity to play at another UU service. Having made contact with Cathy and Heather, Heather said yes, she'd love me to play at her service. By the time we reached St. Louis, I had done some research and realized I was not going to be able to stay long enough to play at the service. So i needed to work out which bus was going to work to get me to seattle on sunday. I also wasn't convinced I was going to make all my connections or, for that matter, that my discovery pass would be taken on the last leg from Ontario. So much as I was excited about meeting new people, it seemed a long way to go for less than the 20 hours my schedule gave me there particularly as I now had three or four less than before (and missing church). I had made tentative enquiries with Stephen Phayre about coming straight to Seattle and leaving Oregon out altogether but, having forsaken breakfast and got a satisfactory answer from greyhound about the discovery pass, I decided to go to Bend as originally planned.

Rocky mountain high, Colorado

We set off from Denver, high in expectation at seeing wonderful sights of the Rockies, particularly important as I had missed the Appalachian mountains. The Rockies were impressive and I got a photo

I'm no photographer nut it breaks up the text.

This was at 11.30. We then saw nothing of any interest until about 7pm. That's a bit mean. There was some interesting bits but an awful lot of mind-numbing nothingness all the way through colorado and Wyoming and most of Utah. Our indian driver was definitely in training, drove like a snail kept saying "i will be getting your attention" and things like that. We stopped early in the day at a state penitentiary and picked up a prison guard and someone who looked like an inmate - nobody was quite sure of the circumstances behind this but there were plenty of theories - and somebody else was dropped off (but it may well have been a town too). After our 30 minute rest stop in Twin Falls Idaho, a wise owl in the back decided to light up a cigarette (and an illegal one at that) forgetting that there were three bus drivers and a prison officer on board. A few testy moments while the notion of pulling the bus over and waiting for the police were bandied about and eventually the dude in the hoodie fessed up and we were on the road again with good schedules to make everyones' connections.

Coming into Salt Lake City, it transpired that we had a local expert and as he had a girl on the bus that he obviously fancied the socks off, the rest of the bus got a guided tour of the approach into the city including pointing out a suburb on the other side of the canyon with the words "there's Colby, I once had sex with a girl there" as well as pointing out the highest artificial ski jump in the world except he knew it was "around here somewhere". Admittedly, it was quite dark so we didn't see too much either but it was an entertaining half hours' drive into the birthplace of the Jacksons and David Cassidy.

Here to Boisie, Idaho, That's how this business goes !!

That's Harry Chapin by the way. Not much else to say about the place !! An extraordinarily large woman who got on at Salt Lake City, sat beside me, fell asleep and then toppled in my direction. I held my breath from Salt Lake City to Boisie in order to give the lady as much space as needed to breathe out as she needed. I was however glad to see that she was as impressed by me on this journey as I was with her when she elected to not sit beside me after we returned to the bus at Boisie Idaho.

There was a fair share of nutters on the buses and in the stations. You had to have your wits and your bags with you at all times. An old geezer from Texas was on his way up to find work in Seattle on his way to find a house in Canada where he felt he would be safer when (not if) the world gets nuked. He felt it could happen in the next year or so. Particularly if the banks continue to get their way. He had had trouble sleeping on the lasr leg of the journey as this other woman had sat beside him and yabbered on at him all night. She was a nice person, he said, but a bit lost in the head. Which is what I had been just thinking about him. She had now lost her ticket and was i the nprocess of negotiating with greyhound that they might let her get home to Spokane Washington but even if she did make it onto the bus he wanted an alternative seating plan. Did I think I could sit beside him ? Bearing in mind the large lady who I had just had sleeping on me, I thought why not ? I let him chat at me for about ten minutes and then stuck on my headphones.

The girl who the Salt Lake City guy fancied was now being seriously flirted with in the seats across from me (like, SERIOUSLY flirted with).

She had been on my buses since St. Louis and I actually knew she was going to Bend, Oregon too so we had spoken a few times over the trip. She was escaping from a bad marriage in New Jersey that had got progressively worse - once her son had left for college, she realized that there was nothing left in the house to distract her from the troubles she was facing with her husband and when her friend from Oregon phoned and offered the room, she phoned her son, told him she was leaving for the west coast and left before her husband returned. Here we were on the home straight - a new home. She was resolute she would not be returning east.

Finally we got off the bus at the hole in the wall that was Ontario, Oregon

"hi, I'm getting the bus to Bend. He takes the Discovery Pass, right ?"

"no !"

"oh, the office in Denver told me the bus here did take that"

"no, sorry"

He did say sorry and he did let me use their private loo but in the meantime my other bus had gone so I was left paying $44 to get to Bend Oregon.

That said, the drive alone was worth it. We had a teeny weeny schoolbus - power sockets and all and Magnificent views over a four hour drive right across the top of the mountain and down again sweeping into Bend a half hour early. It was a fun drive and I got a bit of a sleep into the bargain.

The sleep was needed. I was absolutely flattened by the experience but loved it to bits, traveling through the most exciting, most boring, richest, poorest, flattest, highest, safest, most dangerous parts of America and through all extremes of weather from snow to heat wave and back to through the middle of a mini-tornado Kentucky style with companions of all ethnic backgrounds, religions. It has also reduced my insides to ribbons - not sure what part of the above has caused this. It's probably a combination of it all with an added complement of incessant McDonalds and air conditioning. Either way, I'm on a liquid diet until I get my digestive powers back.

Bend in Oregon is lovely and Cathy and Heather made for marvelous hosts. I helped them with their chicken project - the first steps to being self-sufficient. I ended up staying far too short a time and on Sunday morning, after having played a little on Heather's lovely piano, I was back on the bus again. I arrived at the bus station on Saturday and thought I'd check on the discovery pass situation again, understandably a little anxious by this stage.

"hi. I'm on a discovery pass and I want to travel to Seattle tomorrow."

The lady told me the times - departing Bend 10.15, arriving Seattle 4am. That seemed a bit crazy for what was 6 hours by car. I asked her to explain

Leave Bend 10.15

Arrive Portland 3.20

Leave Portland 7.20

Arrive Seattle 4.05 (am)

On hearing this, Stephen p kindly agreed to pick me up from Portland as we both agreed that another night on a bus might be the nail in the coffin. But before we confirmed this, I checked times on the Internet only to find that my friendly sales assistant had mixed up the words arrival and departure so I resolved to bus to Seattle for 7.20pm with a pickup and ferry ride to Poulsbo to finish the day.

To cap it off, i arrived to the bus station again to check my baggage in for the bus journey. I told her about the discovery pass saga - Denver, Ontario, Bend etc - and it turns out the bus provider from Ontario to Bend does accept the pass as does the Bend Portland bus this morning. You just can't get the staff. She promised she would ring the guy in Ontario to let him know.

Yesterday was characterized by boys chatting up very pretty girls. On the first bus coming down 4000ft from Bend through the most incredible scenes of snow, forest and mountain I've seen on the whole trip (bus moving too fast for camera), I listened to two teenage strangers playing twenty questions with each other for 2 1/2 hours. It was another small schoolbus coach so the whole coach was party to the conversation. Yet only the two participated. It was very charming and very revealing about youth and what's important to them. The second bus from Portland had me very close to hear a conversation between an American idiot trying to chat up an Indian girl and exposing to her and to me how little he knew about anything. It was very amusing, I suspect for both of us.

It has been wonderful to see Stephen Phayre and his wonderful wife Allison and their lovely three kids again and to meet one for the first time. This afternoon, we went out to look at the local shipyard with the USA naval aircraft carriers and went to Walmart to buy Ranch Dressing for my mother and then we went to Starbucks because i'm in Seattle. Tonight they (the kids) made my bed for me kindly supplying teddies to keep me company. See below for photographic evidence.

Tomorrow is my last day of this whirlwind romance before the somewhat quicker ride home. It's been a hugely exciting experience. I'm not sure yet what will come of it but am excited by that too. Looking forward to seeing Kath and Andrew, Siobhaun and Greg, and all the kids too, tomorrow for the last supper in Vancouver BC in the evening.

Not sure what it's like because it's night time, West Virginia

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I'm now in the early stages of an overnight bus to Nashville from which I'll change to a bus to Evansville, Indiana before the mad journey to Oregon which starts on Thursday and concludes 48 hours later. Everybody, including, to some extent me, thinks I'm mad to have not flown across the country but I am enjoying it so far.

When we last spoke, I was approaching Richmond, the capital of the South I've been advised by my hosts for the night due in a large way to its central role the town played in the American Civil War (although apparently only Europeans call it that - American name depends who you're talking to; northern whites call it the war of the states, southern whites call it the war of northern aggression).

I was staying with kind-of-cousins of which I have an awful lot but I'm not on inviting-myself-to-stay basis with most of them. I met Roderick and Susan for the first time (as far as I'm aware) at a wedding in Greece last year of my totally-cousin Malachi. It was a great meeting of totally-cousins and kind-of-cousins and a lot of fun was had by all over the four days spent together on the Greek island. At the end, they made the mistake of inviting us all to come and stay with them in Virginia. Not one to refuse such an offer, I made a point to include it in my itinerary. I also noted that the Organ Historical Society was based in the town and I also heard that the town had the finest Georgian architecture in the united states. Also the applachian mountains nearby. Lots of reasons to visit then.

I was somewhat correct to worry about my pickup - I had forwarded a mobile number for emergency use but as I had arrived a little early, I was resolutely not worrying, at least until the bus was due in anyway. After he was a little later again, I continued to stay calm and about ten minutes on, I received a phone call from a rather lost Rod. I was some help to him when I told him that it was right next to a big "stadium" which turned out to be the baseball diamond. Turns out the bus station is right in the middle of the black side of town and Roderick had had no need to attend a baseball match or catch the bus so - naturally - he had no idea where it was. His satnav had been no help. Greyhound buses and baseball were off-limits or if not, then there hadn't been any reason for them to become on-limits.

As Rod & Susan live out in the country, it was proposed that we do a quick tour of the sights of the city during which he gave me a history lesson of American Civil War 101 which filled me in for what I needed to know should I meet any history professors while in the town. I'm not sure I would pass an exam 24 hours on but I do remember some of the bullet points like the fact that Thomas E. Lee was actually called Robert E. Lee ( I was the only one who thought otherwise but I stand corrected) and that somebody was either captured or died on the 4th tee of the local country club, the same country club that, until recently, had a sign that read "No blacks, No Jews" - when they were forced to take down the sign, their membership changed not at all because the blacks a) couldn't give a shit about joining (and didn't have enough money anyway) and b) the Jews had all gone off and set up their own much nicer clubs into which they were allowing nobody else. I also learnt that Thomas Jefferson, US president and celebrated Bible editor beloved of some Unitarians, was from Virginia. We went into the magnificent Jefferson Hotel after which Rod paid the porter a tip for holding his keys which i found extraordinary (but kept my mouth shut). In the hotel, i got a lesson on where all the different americans had come from and how the white Virginians were mostly Protestants who had mostly come from from Ulster, Scotland and England, and how they had simply replaced their hard-nosed bigotry towards Catholics with hard-nosed bigotry towards blacks. I learnt about White-Flight that came with integrated schooling and the different schools that were in the area - private and university. We went up to Church Hill which overlooks the city and overlooked the city for a few moments - Rod told me how the city had been named because some learned intrepid explorer had thought the bend in the river looked just like the Thames at Richmond (it doesn't, it just looks like a bend in a river) and then went downtown to Rod's office which is a converted store-building in the oldest part of town - it went from being a brothel to being an investment bankers so it was generally agreed that was all continuing in the downward spiral that the building has become accustomed to. The tramp outside the front door is always there - "because you're an investment bank ?" I ask. "no, he was there before we came and feels he has as much right to be there as us". Rod's colleagues in the office are amused to hear of my trek but suggest that the Midwest is the reason God invented planes.

We drove up Monument Avenue with lots of monuments erected in memory of important people and then out to Sabot Hill where they live with their three children when they're home from university which isn't often. Their house is built in a fantastic development set up by a farmer and his IDE who had 40,000 acres and started buying houses and transplanting them onto their farm, renting them out and out of this, they created their own little community, Sabot Hill. Since then, people including Roderick and Susie have bought land and built, some houses nicer than others but all landowners have access to all the land for horse-riding mostly but other leisure pursuits too. The various homeowners have parties together through the year and although each house is secluded and looks to the outside world like a separate development it does actually feel like a community albeit one where everyone is not living in each others' pockets. Their house overlooks one of the three private lakes and it is very picturesque indeed. They have five (I think) horses and enjoy riding and hunting and golf. All quite well-to-do but Rod has worked very hard for it so you certainly can't begrudge them it.

I learnt ALL of this before dinner and then learnt of their family over dinner so was glad to be able to shut the door of my room and settle in relatively early. I find it quite hard to believe I was even contemplating this but last night I was considering whether to set off early this morning for Nashville as Rod was sorry I wouldn't be seeing the Applachian Mountains on my bus journey this evening. Mountains or sleep ? Mountains or sleep ? I took sleep and was happy to lie In this morning.

Pretty lazy day today - some time to walk the dogs and survey the forthcoming Bend Seattle conundrum (the only real scheduling nightmare of this journey - still unresolved) and then off for dinner in town ahead of them going to a concert and me going to a bus. Unrivaled disaster - traffic gridlock, no parking spaces, wrong food brought (Rod certainly didn't order Bread Salad, only made worse by the fact that the bread was stale. I, on the other hand, didn't realize steak tartare was raw burger - still, you've got to laugh), and then my taxi never arrived. Generous to the end, Roderick jumped in his car and dropped me to the bus. It set off 40 minutes late but I am on the road.

On arriving, I asked Rod what the predominant ethnic makeup of the city was as the Georgian architecture story I'd heard didn't sit with the many black people I'd seen milling about the bus station. He told me about the blacks and whites but something I worked out over the couple of days is that the answer to the question really depends on who you're talking to. Neither community seems to interact with the other except maybe in the younger Church Hill area which is quite well integrated. I would never meet black people in the sort of places Rod and Susan would go in the same way that I had to guide him to the bus station yesterday when he was lost. The two communities seem to co-exist quite peacefully but not interact - two cities in the one.

Apparently we're in the process of going over the mountains now. I'm not even feeling any air-pressure sickness and I won't see them this time but when I wake up I'll be in a new "other world". I have a new city to add to my list of cities seen and liked and I could very happily live in. And all the cities I've been in have been completely different to each other. I can understand how so many Americans don't leave their country - there's so much variety to discover here. Tomorrow is another day. Must sleep. Goodnight !!

New York, New York As Gaelige

So I got to Poughkeepsie and did the interview which will by now have gone out on the air although there doesn't seem to be a podcast and i'm not sure anyone who I know heard it. In fact, as it turns out, the interview was going out on a community college station run by students of Vassar College, one of the seven (?) sister colleges of female only colleges in the northeastern region of the United States of America. As Denis Johnston, my grandfather, was a lecturer at another one, Mount Holyoke in Northampton, Massacheusetts, it was interesting for me to see the college. In fact, Scott and I weren't able to get into the college to record the interview so it was recorded in his car. However, my hosts that night David and Susan both work in the college and he had some time the following morning to take me on a quick tour of the campus. Another lovely Spring day allowed for a very pleasant walk, taking in the beautiful 1860 buildings financed by local rich businessman Matthew Vassar who had made large amounts of money in the brewing industry and wanted to give something back to the area. He was encouraged that the perfect way to do this would be to found a girls' college. The grounds are lovely, particularly the original buildings and their modern extensions which are sensitively done. Other more modern areas of the campus are less well thought out and although you wouldn't want to constantly revisit the past I can't help feeling that someone or ones dropped the ball. David and Susan were very generous with their time and dropped me to the train at about noon and I made my way back into Manhattan with the "rocksack" and, despite Mary Coit having given me directions from elsewhere in the city, found her flat pretty easily, much easier than the previous day with all it's stress and strain.

Mary Coit, for those of you who don't know, was one of my grandfather's students at Mount Holyoke, babysat for my uncles and has stayed in contact with the family ever since. She insists I stay with her when I'm in NYC and I'm always glad to take up the offer. (This time around, i slightly threw her a curve ball and added an extra day at her flat which she very graciously agreed t). In exchange, I give her lots of family gossip and allow her to flex her career-guidance muscle which she enjoys doing in the form of asking difficult questions and dishing out advice, not because she has any special insight, but rather that it gives her an opportunity to tell you her opinion. She lost no opportunity to tell me what she thought and most of the time her comments were very perceptive and wise and when they weren't she listened to my replies and considered it carefully. Every opportunity was taken right down to "final words of wisdom" this morning at 8am. She also prefaced each "session" with a cup of tea just to make sure I wasn't going anywhere. She also has an excellent sense of humor which is just as well as she's probably reading this. If she is, she'll also know that I'm not doing the homework (or, rather, buswork) which she has set me as I'm writing this. I will put my mind to it, Mary, I promise.

I love New York but I do have problems with it. Most notable is lefts and rights when I'm in that city. I find myself going uptown instead of downtown, on streets instead of avenues and the most desperate of these occurrences seem to be on corners. I don't know why - it just happens to me.

After the first Mary Coit "cup of tea", I spotted that, as I was suddenly in NYC a day early, Niall and Laura from London (i played at their wedding last year) are in town. I saw on Facebook that they were in Tiffany "pretending to be rich" so after a few mails back and forth, we arranged to meet on the rooftop garden of 230 5th Avenue for a drink which turned into a light dinner before they headed for their flight home. Always good company. Thought about catching some jazz on the way home. The Jazz Standard on 27th and Park is my Favourite jazz club in NYC, more so than the better-known ones, was on my way home, and was hosting a very promising gig by a tenor saxophonist both Thursday and Friday. However, after my calamari and chips (sorry, fries - made that mistake in Boston), I had $8 left of my initial wallet that I had brought so, a little sobered by that, and wrecked too, I decided to go the following night after a trip to the ATM (in daylight). On the way home, I did come across Fitzgeralds' Pub, a very un-Irish-pubby Irish pub on 3rd Avenue. They were showing the Baseball match (I think) and I came in and had a Coke and had a chat with Conor, the barman from Cabra. We talked about the rugby match but they weren't showing it - it was being shown in the other Irish pub across the road. I made a mental note of the time and went back to the flat.

On Friday, I went to MOMA, the Museum of Modern Art which had two special exhibitions on. The ticket cost $25 for both of them, plus another five floors of permanent exhibit. The special exhibit I'd been recommended was a retrospective by New York photographer Cindy Sherman and was one of the most impressive and creepiest bodies of work I've ever seen. Basically every picture features herself in it, sometimes heavily disguised, sometimes obviously but always in a situation. She works alone, serving as make-up, costume design, set design, hair, photographer and model. Some of her work is very dark indeed. Other stuff is very funny.

The other was an overview of the finest American and international print design. It was much lighter in tone and very interesting. Some conceptual head-up-your-arse stuff but not too much to bear.

Went to the tenor sax dude on Friday night - didn't make the mistake this time of asking for root beer. Uh-huh. The music was brilliant. The place is brilliant. The couple who let e sit down beside them were very nice. It was expensive enough ($35) including drink and tip) but was worth it.

St patrick's day was fun even though I actually did very little. My good friend Amy Panetta had told me about a mass in Irish in St Agnes' Church which the Celtic music meetup group that she was involved with were planning to follow with Irish breakfast in Fitzpatrick' Hotel at Grand Central Station. We both decided that sounded like fun and then some of that group were planning to watch the parade so hey, we could do that too. A nicely executed O'Riada Mass was a strange bedfellow to a rather dramatic sermon in English by the new pastor of the church while the prayers and liturgy were conducted by a visiting Irish priest. Amy and I were both amused when I was approached and asked to take up the collection. I proposed Amy and we were both relieved when someone else came and took the bucket from us halfway through the service.

Breakfast at fitzpatricks was certainly a money spinner, took an outrageously long time to come and was not very good which is a disappointment but the company was very enjoyable and a nice way to pass a moment.

But of course by the time we got out of there the parade had started and the crowds were about 20 thick - hence we were about 50 blocks away from anywhere that we were going to be able to see. After a few minutes of wondering and wandering, the parties went off in their various directions. Amy and I vaguely thought about rugby but by the time we got to the appropriate pub you couldn't squeeze another head into it, never mind a whole body. Plus the sun was splitting the stones so why would we want to sit in a pub ? Btw do I want to know what the final score was ?

NYC on st Patrick's day is probably best avoided. A lot of people spend a lot of time at the pub (and many of them are not Irish) which can be irritating if you are trying to get somewhere but I wasn't and really enjoyed the hurly burly of it. You do reach a point where enough is enough and although we had been offered tickets to a gig by Mary who had bought them for me and her but didn't feel well when the time arrived, Amy's enough moment arrived at 4 and she commuted back to New Jersey.

I chilled for a while and then set off for the gig. The Bernie Worrell Orchestra featuring special guest Rob Schwimmer on Theremin. Mary was very excited about the venue and she is right. It's fantastic although you can't sit down unless you plan to eat and then they automatically add 20% tip to your bill. I stood. I have ten days left of this trip. The warm-up was rubbish - a piano player who played incredibly boring instrumentals and thought he could make them sound really good by banging, over-amplifying it, and adding distortion. Oh, and the really good bass player on the next few songs was welcome but didn't make the music any better. Bernie and his orchestra was great though - super, big sound. Terrific singer. Two drummers and percussion. Funky. And theremin is a fabulously surreal addition to that with Schwimmer looking like he's just stepped out from playing Doc in Back To The Future. Great night - and I didn't get lost on the way there, or back. Bonus.

I was in good Unitarian company on Sunday morning. Amy p had arranged me an opportunity to play at her church which was called Central Unitarian Church. By its name, I had mistakenly assumed it to be in New York City. This was a mistake and by the time I realized the mistake Sheila Powers (formerly from Alaska, more recently Dublin and, in the last two months, Conneticut) had decided that the most perfect way she could think of to spend her day off on a Sunday would be to drive to New York and see me. So she came and picked me up and we drove together to deepest darkest suburban New Jersey (what Della wore) and I played them an Irish tune to start their service (the meeting of the waters) and one to end their service (Carolan's concerto) on their beautiful piano (how come all UU churches seem to have beautiful pianos ?) and, having "done" coffee with the congregation and said goodbye to Amy (again) then we worked our way into NYC again and hung out at the end of 42nd St overlooking the Hudson, listening to eighties summer hits and pretending it was August, catching up and quizzing each other on our various explorations and new career paths. Scary but less scary when you know you're not the only one in that position.

I went home via the bus station to buy a lotto ticket (new york lotto is currently a staggering $241 million) and to check I didn't need a reservation for today's bus. "oh no, not at all. The bus is first come, first served".

So I arrived 90 minutes early today to find that because I didn't have a reservation bthat I would be on standby. I arrived second. I got on last. Greyhound could do some work on communications.

But I'm on the bus, I'm 6 1/2 hours through a 7 1/2 hour journey, I negotiated lunch at Quiznos Sub, I managed to eat it and get back on before the driver drove away and although my nice shiny iPad doesn't seem to have gps I'm just about following the route on google maps. I'm also now an expert on the New Jersey Turnpike thanks to Wikipedia.

Not entirely sure anyone is expecting me in Richmond in an hours time - join me next time to find out if I had to sleep in a doorway.

She Played "Please Come To Boston" On The Jukebox, I Said "Hey That's My Favourite Song"

WOW !! MORE THAN A FEELING

I have had a fairly exhilarating trip so far and I'm not sure how far I'm going to get before falling asleep at the keyboard so if you notice a few zzzz's creeping in, shout and wake me up.

Had a pretty crazy weekend between playing at a weekend and that wedding's reception (in the middle of the night), church on Sunday playing but also listening to a preacher who would like to be our churches' next minister, and then playing at a 90th birthday party so it was about 6pm on Sunday evening that I finally got around to the equally important jobs of tidying my house for Peter who would mind it for me and packing.

What to bring on a trip lasting 2 1/2 weeks in March ? Wasn't really sure - still not - but went for a two-pronged strategy of a) keeping it light and b) you're bound to have lots of the wrong stuff but everything can be bought bar travel documents and passport. So one wooly jumper, one short-sleeve shirt and lots of inbetweeny clothes. Bob's your uncle. Oh, and a box of Cd's. Getting that together was a story in itself but together it was got and I got to bed by midnight with a minimal amount to do in the morning. The packing light didn't work but that was mostly because of the CDs so that should improve (unless I buy more stuff to offset it)

All the usual stuff happened on the way to the airport: checked for my passport 15,000 times, checked that the ticket said pm and not am about the same number of times (thanks Em), went to the bank and got dollars, ran for the bus and thankfully didn't set off any alarms going through security.

Had some fun with immigration over the box of CD's in my bag, particularly as I hadn't mentioned them on my customs form (the usual mixup between gifts, samples and merchandise: Q when is merchandise not merchandise ? A never). I realized pretty quickly that I should have mentioned them of course when, despite very pointedly not telling the man the "whole story" as Ian Dowse had advised all those years ago, the immigration man seemed to want to hear the unedited version. I stopped short of singing "leaving on a jet plane" or telling him any jokes and although I was relatively comfortable that my bag was safely on the plane, I was surprised to turn around and see my case had a starring role on a Telly screen to my right.

"sir, do you recognize this to be your bag ?"

Upon Confirming that it was indeed mine, there was some furious scribbling and I was told that the lady in Customs would complete my interview. Oh shit.

Although I kept telling myself that it was probably the bag of jellies mum had sent me with to post to my cousin in California, I knew that this was probably less likely than it being about the bloody discs and although the nice lady in customs and exercise expressed great surprise when I fessed up, I suspect that this was merely a way of rubbing in the unease I already felt about being in this particular room. Anyway, she smiled and said she was happy to let me be on my way as long as the discs were gifts and not for sale. I agreed and off I went.

Welcome to the United States of America.

Flight uneventful and fun - love the sat nav map they have now to show you where you are and what to look out for below. Kept me entertained for hours. 50/50 was the movie. A vaguely trivializing movie about cancer, it nonetheless had some touching moments (and even whole scenes) featuring friends and family and how they deal with the situation.

Met up with Steve and Beth Jungmann and their three beautiful girls who appear to me to be glowing examples of humanity and a credit to their parents and themselves. It is always a pleasure to be in Steve and Beth's (and their family's) company and I am thankful for the time and their home they shared with me over the last two nights.

I seem to have arrived at the onset of a mini-heat wave - considerably hotter than it normally is this time of year anyway. I ended up in the drugstore yesterday buying sun cream, didn't think I'd need that. Also have new baseball cap and am seeking out shorts. Of course I'll get them just in time for the weather to break.

This shopping was done yesterday in Boston (remember Boston ? This blog is about Boston - think Arlo Guthrie for that reference) and there was a large shopping list which included;
* sim card which would work in USA - successful, if somewhat pricey.
* pick up Greyhound pass - eventually successful although t-mobile staff member from previous task sent me wrong direction down right street adding an hours' walk (but I did get to see Commonwealth Ave and Boston Common in the process so that kind of made up for it)
* do some research into replacing laptop, maybe with iPad - total success, am writing this on said iPad and it was $500 cheaper than laptop would have been.
* find new battery for my phone - unexpectedly successful, bonus points
* get train home to counter-balance bus overload - very enjoyable
* meet Alice and Rebecca - both unsuccessful and believe me girls, nobody more disappointed than me.
* post the jellies - half successful. They're in an envelope but not in the post yet (see below)

But bonus points for unexpected pleasures of finding Berklee College of Music, Boston Common, playing a $81,000 Steinway concert grand (and making friends with the sales assistant), meeting a police man who told me he hadn't a clue where the post office was ("but ask a cabbie, they know everything") and finding public loos every time I needed to pee which was quite a lot thanks to 22 degrees sunshine and large bottle of water combination. My walk on Tuesday was about four times the length it needed to be but goodness, isn't Boston lovely ? I shall return

After some playing with my new toy, I went to bed last night and slept the sleep of the dead.

New day today and start of the odyssey proper. I had organized to do a live radio interview with Scott Raymond, a dj with WVKR, a radio station broadcast From Vasser College in Poughkeepsie in New York State. The show goes out on Sunday but Amy Panetta organized me some activities for sunday morning so Scott very kindly said he'd do a pre-record this evening (Wednesday) and this was my first stop. Fun-and-games with transport options earlier in the day meant I almost didn't get here at all. The bus in Boston was full and I didn't have a reservation. There were six of us in that "boat" and five of us got on and had to watch the sixth in tears on the platform. Doug who was behind me in the queue was traveling to New York to connect to a bus to Muncey, Pennsylvania to go to work drilling for natural gas - he works 18 hour days 2 weeks on, 1 week off leaving his wife and kid in New Hampshire. He had been the girl on the platform the previous day and had been told by his employer not to bother showing up if he didn't make it tonight. His onward journey meant he would have 20 minutes between making it to Muncey and starting his shift. It put my time pressures in perspective but I wasn't giving up my place in the queue anyway. In the end, we both got on and he didn't hold it against me - "each man for himself". Another guy was coming home from Afghanistan, on his way to Missouri, some 52 hours all on the same bus from New York down the road. The bus driver was a hoot, commenting on everything - they seem to think they know as much as the cabbies. We stopped at a burger king. Later, he told the front few rows that the driver of the other bus at the bk had confided in him that there had been a report on his bus of one passenger having a gun in his possession. He (our driver) had advised him to get the police to quietly and discreetly corner this guy behind the bk where it wouldn't upset the other passengers. Three miles down the road and we saw the same bus on the hard shoulder surrounded by 5 squad cars lights flashing. Black humor yes but there was some amusement on our bus. "see what the police service has come down to ?" yep, and they don"t even know where the post office is.

Poughkeepsie is well served by bus and train from NYC but the bus is not valid on my discovery pass so i decided to get the train again. Both services are a well kept secrets if you don't actually live in the town. So even once I reached New York it was a test to work out where to go which saw me almost paying $100 more than I needed to and mistaking the word bus for the letter "s" (not as stupid as it sounds) amongst many other deviations from the most correct, easiest, efficient and quickest route. The Subway staff are rude and seem to consider customers an imposition that they shouldn't have to contend with in the course of their working day. There are no subway maps on the walls and no subway staff except for the aforementioned who sit in a glass box, scowl at you if you approach them and get cross with you if you ask them a question. The staff on the tube in london have got it right- not always polite but at least there when they need to be and some bloody maps on the walls. Aaaaagggghhhhhh. I eventually made it to Grand Central and found my way to the correct train. After all this the journey to Poughkeepsie was a tonic for the soul along the banks of the Hudson in the early evening sunlight - lovely journey.

Dinner and very enjoyable interview with Scott Raymond and now I'm staying the night with parents of friends of friends (although these people I've never actually met before so I really do appreciate the goodwill and hospitality shown towards me tonight. Thanks Marcus and Lily, David and Susan, Scott, and Sheila Powers for teaching me how to pronounce the word Poughkeepsie.

Back to NYC tomorrow. Next installment soon.

Walked Off To Look For America - A trip to end all trips

So I've had this dream for a few years now. In fact, I hit on Plan A of the dream in May 2000 on the way home from my friend Stephen Phayre's wedding in Temecula, California, United States of America.

I should, and soon, try and get to see some of these US music cities that I've heard so many people speak of - Memphis, Nashville, New Orleans, Chicago. I had already seen San Francisco on that trip so although it would be lovely to go there again, it didn't necessarily need to be factored into this music cities tour. Likewise, New York wasn't naturally on the list so I figured I'd get there but not on this trek.

This Monday marks the culmination of 12 years of dreaming and about 3 months of planning. The dream has developed so much that the trip will take in none of the cities mentioned above (other than a 2 hour change of buses in Nashville). The Music Cities tour will happen but not this time. This one is instead inspired by Paul Simon's classic song, "America".

For some reason, I am terribly excited. I am travelling from Boston to Vancouver via Nashville on Greyhound buses. As a twentysomething I never went backpacking so now that I own a house and am suffering the onset of horrible arthritic symptoms, I've decided that now is my opportunity - possibly my last opportunity - to go and get lost for a couple of weeks.

I'm not at all sure what the point of it all is but I'm not at all sure what the point of anything is at the moment so if I find some - any - clues to the second question, well that might answer the first question. We'll see.

I'm not being presumptious but just in case it interests anyone, and to document what's going on, and because I'll, at one point or another, have three days on a bus, I'll document the ongoing trip. It's all holiday - no gigs - but a few people will informally hear me play the piano and I'm looking forward to doing a radio interview in Poughkeepsie, NY with Scott Raymonde, a DJ who gave me praise, feedback and airplay when The Shape Of Things came out last year. The great conundrum at the moment is when Poughkeepsie is going to happen - but it will at some stage over the first week.

On the May 2000 trip, in San Francisco, I budgeted 2 hours to get from the city centre to the Golden Gate Bridge, walk across it, get back to the city centre and get back to the burbs for dinner. I will not offend other Irish males by suggesting this is an Irish male generalisation. This is pecularily Josh's problem. I have not the slightest clue how far away things are in America - this has already been cause of much amusement amongst my family whilst planning this trip. New York to Toronto is not the same as Dublin to Galway. If you did not know that already, let me reassure you.

Enough for now - see you in Boston.