Over the holidays I decided to go down to Vancouver. Since I couldn’t coordinate the times between a plane and a bus (and I don’t think my car could make it on a long trip), I took a bus all the way back from Vancouver to Burns Lake.
When I hopped on the bus in Vancouver, I was in denial of the fact that I still had 19 hours ahead of me on that bus. I had barely slept the night before because it was New Year’s Eve, so I was hoping to sleep for most of the trip, but the frequent stops and driver’s announcements made sleeping a bit challenging.
Luckily I was still able to sleep for the first five hours of this trip. When I woke up I realized that my phone was dead and I had not brought a book to read, so I knew that the next 14 hours would not be fun.
From Vancouver to Prince George, the bus took a route through the canyons, and although the view was absolutely stunning, the endless curves made some passengers feel sick.
As you may have guessed it, travelling right behind a nauseated person is not a great experience.
To make matters worse, half way through the trip (when I was already losing the will to live) the RCMP stopped our bus to have a chat with our driver. An RCMP officer then entered the bus and announced the name of the person they needed to “get off the bus immediately” (I was certain that, with my luck, I was about to hear a gun fire).
The suspicious individual got off the bus after some hesitation and spoke to the RCMP officers. The concerning part is that he later returned to the bus, and we continued the trip as if nothing had happened (needless to say nobody sat next to this person until the end of the trip).
But I guess the worst part of it all was that I was starving from start to finish because we never stopped at an actual restaurant.
Our bus passed in front of countless restaurants, but only stopped at these tiny little places that served unhealthy food and offered very few choices. When I ordered a burger, the clerk told me he could not prepare my meal on time before the end of our bus break. So I grabbed something from a vending machine and returned to the bus (I think I stopped being friendly after this).
Just when I thought I had already been through the worst part of the trip, the bus driver warned us that there would be some freezing rain along the way.
When the freezing rain finally caught up to us, the driver realized he could no longer continue without chaining up. Some people who were on the bus helped the driver out, and after 30 minutes we were back on the road, only this time a lot slower.
Even with the chains, the driver was still having trouble getting through all the ice and snow, so we stopped again. The driver had to call the main office to figure out if he should proceed.
We remained on the bus for about 45 minutes before the driver announced that he was going to proceed. All the passengers started looking at each other with concern because we had heard how bad the roads were.
But we made it safely to Prince George, only with a three-hour delay. And of course, that wasn’t the end of the road for me – I was still three to four hours away from home.
When I finally arrived in Burns Lake at 4 a.m., I was dehydrated, starving and exhausted, but I must say – happy to be home.
I guess it’s no surprise I will be taking the plane next time.
