Uhhh... Montreal!

It's 7:21pm and I'm drinking a coffee and eating a pistachio muffin. I'm wearing the same clothes as when I left Ravi and Lynn's house - except I changed my boxers once. The elastic died, and I gave them a proper burial in the garbage at an IGA. I think the rain actually did some good to wash out the rest. This is good outdoor clothing. Thin wool/poly blend shirt, awesome shorts previously described. I'm good for another few weeks if I get into some water a few times. I'm enjoying this moment. My feet are propped up on the windowsill overlooking where the buses pull in. I'm in South Station in Boston for the second time on this trip. My bus leaves at 11:45 and gets to Montreal at quarter to 7am.

Yodeling. Rebel yell. As much as I raved about those Google Maps improvements, I had trouble. I have a saying: Don't rave about your sandwich until you've tried eating it. Well the sandwich looked great, but I didn't know where it was sending me. The sweat was pouring in my eyes, and I had a feeling that I'd already seen the best of this big state. Google revived itself with 1-800-GOOG-411. I got connected to Greyhound and confirmed that I could change my scenery today for a reasonable fee. I'd been teetering on the edge of hitching somewhere, but the bus option won me over. I did an about face back into town and got to work.

The bus ticket guy wouldn't sell me a ticket until my bicycle was in a box. He didn't have a box, of course. The bus was leaving in a little over an hour. No reason to panic - it's not like I was going to miss out on free sandwiches or something. I cycled about a mile or so to the bicycle shop across the river and thanked them sincerely for a box. I cursed my way back to the bus station and eyeballed the guy to put down his soup and sell me a ticket. Then I did the absolute shittiest boxing job that I thought I could get away with. I played the game politely - but when he made a comment about the box not closing, I told him "listen... I didn't bring my full set of pro-shop tools."

My water bottle spilled in the box and fucked it all up even worse, and now I'm sitting here eating a muffin, amused at the bar end shifter and pedal poking out of the side of the box, surveying the scenery with me.