I really really appreciate all your supportive comments, I didn't even know Alec had made a thread about this. But it's very nice to know that people were thinking of me and hoping for my safety... so again, thanks everyone.
And now...
a tale of travel woes:
Passport discovered missing around Midnight Friday night, freakouts and breakdowns and tearing apart of hotel rooms until about 3am, woke up at 7am to try to get things sorted out, determined that the bus would be the cheapest and fastest way to get home without a passport. Alec was really upset, and I felt really bad that because of my stupidity, we both had to go through the stress of it.
I walked to the SF greyhound station at 11:30 am on Saturday and hopped on a bus pretty last-minute, which meant a more expensive, non-refundable ticket. But at least I was going home... the first stop was in Sacramento, which was full of shady characters. One old man on the bus had a disgusting hacking cough that sounded uncannily like an L4D smoker, and he was looking at me and talking to himself and laughing. When he got off for a smoke break I moved seats and hid below his line of sight.
I had a layover in Reno, NV, while they changed buses due to mechanical problems, and met a young man who was going back to Utah because:
1) his mother was dying.
2) he was going to propose to his girlfriend there.
3) he was done his stint on a crab boat and was now rich.
4) he had broken his parole and needed to get back to Utah to turn himself in.
.........
And in spite of all this, he was a really nice kid. Funny, that. So anyways, from Reno to Salt Lake City I was seated beside another nice guy who was going back home (Montana) to repair the situation with his wife and his 1 year-old child. He had been in California for a while training under a ninjitsu master. No joke, this guy was a 3rd degree blackbelt in fucking ninjitsu. And we talked a lot about spirituality and art and passion and the brain and stuff, he was super interesting and I kind of wish he could have come the whole way with me. It would have made the trip more exciting, in a good way.
In Salt Lake City the layover was pretty long for a transfer to a new bus, and I had never had a transfer before so I didn't realize that you either lined up or the bus got full and you got kicked off.... thankfully, I managed to be the absolute LAST person allowed on. I was so terrified that I wouldn't get on and then I would have to wait in Utah another day.
Salt Lake City to Denver was pretty uneventful but very long, and I was seated with a nice but mildly annoying old man. Denver to Omaha was also uninteresting, seated with a strange old lady who only bought energy drinks and caffeine powder at rest stops and spent most of the trip rocking forward and backwards. She also called a friend for a few hours to talk about how depressed she was. By this point I had developed a nasty cold and had a fever, and all the bus drivers liked to have the A/C on so I was constantly cold.
Omaha to Sioux Falls was uneventful except that so few people were on the bus that I got my own two seats and slept the whole way, the first stretch of rest longer than 2 hours in a very long time. When we got to Sioux Falls they informed me that because of flooding AND blizzards in North Dakota, I may get stuck in Fargo. I really didn't care by this point because Fargo was closer to home and I knew people there, and at least then I would have options. So the bus to Fargo had only about 8 people on it and the best bus driver ever, who was determined to not answer calls telling him to turn around at Fargo because he was convinced that he could get us through. Tragically, when we got through blizzard conditions to Fargo, the officials at the station there shut him down.
So I was in Fargo, 3pm. The next bus through there came in 2 days, since the bus to Winnipeg only runs Monday, Wednesday, Friday. And even if I waited the two days, there was no guarantee that I could leave Wednesday because it was snowing like crazy and supposed to be warming up within a few days, which would worsen the flooding. The greyhound station was kicking everyone out at 4:00 and refused to put us up anywhere for the night, and the cheapest hotel with any vacancy was 160 USD a night. So I ended up banding together with a nice old man from Winnipeg who I had spoken to on the bus from Sioux Falls, and two other guys trying to get to Winnipeg. We decided to rent a car and drive it across the border using smaller service roads, dropping it off in Winnipeg. Renting a car would cost about $100 for each of us, less than staying in Fargo. We left the city around 5:00pm and drove through some blizzard conditions to highway 18, a few miles west of the main highway that was flooded (because it runs along the Red River). Visibility cleared up shortly and we were trucking along thinking that this was going too well and that something had to go wrong.
Sure enough, we got to the border crossing at Gretna (this is the border just West of the main crossing at Emerson) and encountered problems with the young American man with us, named Victor. Customs was going to let the three Winnipeg citizens through no problem, but not the boy from Michigan, who it turns out had a clean record but a very unstable plan: he had met a girl from Edmonton on the internet and was going to meet her (he could catch a greyhound the next morning from Winnipeg), but he didn't have a number or address for her, and believed that once he got to Edmonton he could find a job and stay there.
Soooooooooo, we had to go back in to America, and US customs were assholes and questioned both me and Victor before letting us through. It was now 9:30 pm and that small crossing was closing at 10:00. We were told to go over to the 24-hour crossing at Emerson, which would have more resources to check Victor's story out. And that close to the border, the highway wasn't flooded.
So we drove over there and Victor called home to get Edmonton girl's phone number from his mother. Once again, customs was cool with us but not Victor.... though the guy who checked my bag and asked me questions had heard of Aquaria, which was pretty cool
I told him he should play it.
There was a lot of waiting while Immigrations dealt with Victor, but eventually, at midnight, it was decided that he could be allowed into the country with a document stating that he had to be out or on his way out by April the 12th or there would be a warrant released for his arrest. I feel sorry for the kid, but at this point, I really couldn't care less if he was stupid enough to try to stay.
So we got into Winnipeg around 1:00am and filled up the rental and exchanged names and addresses. Thankfully, the people in the car with me were all very nice and interesting to talk with. If I had to go through so much crap and waiting and stress, I am glad that it was with them.
I got home around 2 am, called Alec, took extra drowsy tylenol, ate an apple (my first piece of food since 11am the day before) and passed out.
I will never ever ride greyhound again.
Or lose my passport.
And neither should you.
The End.
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