![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Bus was a bit late. Mexican time.
All of GotoBus on the West Coast seems to be Tufesa. Getting on the wrong bus and I'd really be on Mexico Time. I'm the only white person. The bus driver is immaculately dressed in a three piece suit and is meaty and when he walked in to the station (actual station, not just a stop), I was wondering if he was security for something important.
Except for the toilet that doesn't flush (holding back on drinking more than a few sips of my coffee), it's a million times better than Greyhound. I'm not sure we're on time for Bakersfield though. Okay, one thing that isn't optimal is movies on the bus screens. That interferes with reading, napping, and basically life.
Patrons are way less anti-social than on Greyhound. Hispanic Americans are used to sharing public spaces; white Americans aren't. Stayed on the same bus instead of changing in LA even though we went through LA. LA was an hour and a half of limping around on surface street traffic. Is the entirety of LA homeless or does it just seem like it? Mad Max has nothing on this city. It's apocalyptic, including cut up vintage hotrods and garbage mods. Bus schedules always seem to be written as if the bus isn't going to spend an hour and a half limping along surface streets but it's probably just my imagination that that's the one thing that makes us go late.
Okay, they decided that the left front tire was broken (looks fine to me but they know way more about this stuff than I do but maybe I'm just snotty because I was on a bus once that had an actual blowout and chunks of tire violently beat against the floorboard the whole rest of the trip) so we waited for a bit to see about having it changed before swapping that bus for an old lady of the fleet. Bye bye power outlets, but also bye bye movies.
Thinking back, it's amazing how often the bus has to turn around or we're switching buses in middle of the Interstate or something. Now we're really not on precise, exact schedule. I changed to the next Amtrak.
Bakersfield... is not ped friendly:
This walk left me repeatedly navigating highway intersections without any ped facilities -- ie, playing Frogger. Other people were just walking along the tracks including over train bridges over highways, but I didn't want to get in trouble. This city seems to be aspiring to be LA by copying the horrible bits. No doubt there's cultural influence there. There's evidence of a city bus system but one of the most horrifying things on Earth is bus stop signs but zero other evidence of bus infrastructure including lack of shelters or pull outs and oh you know say actual buses anywhere.
No city wants to be a fly-over city but for some reason, they're perfectly happy being some other city's cloverleaf. We need different designations for city and toilets along the highway. I love Bakersfield.
Because of all of the Frogger, and being a bit encumbered, the walk took longer than expected. Moving the train 1.75 hours back worked out just right.
My instinct to make sure I was getting on the right train had to be suppressed as the signs at the station didn't indicate when the train was leaving, when it was boarding, which train it was, or anything really, and it just started boarding. I'm rough on my geography, but even in my sleep deprived state, I remembered that only one train goes down there, unlike every other stop I use.
Waiting on the train, it's white people again, mostly from LA, I'm guessing. Almost all of them look like having to wait until just before the departure time is ruining their life. They're probably right -- the urban hustle probably is killing them. One guy got on with nothing but a skateboard and a large stuffed unicorn. He was chill. I wish I were better at chill. I have work hard at it.
Train is out of Mac and Cheese. Might try again to pick out food in a bit here. Supplies are running low.
On the way, I got an email from SACDELBAYDELMRIODELMAR that they changed the bathroom codes again and please stop letting the ransacking armies through the gates so pooping opportunities continue to be limited which is good reasons to eat a proper meal on the train, if I can find one.
This may not be the optimal route... or even more horrifyingly, it might be.
All of GotoBus on the West Coast seems to be Tufesa. Getting on the wrong bus and I'd really be on Mexico Time. I'm the only white person. The bus driver is immaculately dressed in a three piece suit and is meaty and when he walked in to the station (actual station, not just a stop), I was wondering if he was security for something important.
Except for the toilet that doesn't flush (holding back on drinking more than a few sips of my coffee), it's a million times better than Greyhound. I'm not sure we're on time for Bakersfield though. Okay, one thing that isn't optimal is movies on the bus screens. That interferes with reading, napping, and basically life.
Patrons are way less anti-social than on Greyhound. Hispanic Americans are used to sharing public spaces; white Americans aren't. Stayed on the same bus instead of changing in LA even though we went through LA. LA was an hour and a half of limping around on surface street traffic. Is the entirety of LA homeless or does it just seem like it? Mad Max has nothing on this city. It's apocalyptic, including cut up vintage hotrods and garbage mods. Bus schedules always seem to be written as if the bus isn't going to spend an hour and a half limping along surface streets but it's probably just my imagination that that's the one thing that makes us go late.
Okay, they decided that the left front tire was broken (looks fine to me but they know way more about this stuff than I do but maybe I'm just snotty because I was on a bus once that had an actual blowout and chunks of tire violently beat against the floorboard the whole rest of the trip) so we waited for a bit to see about having it changed before swapping that bus for an old lady of the fleet. Bye bye power outlets, but also bye bye movies.
Thinking back, it's amazing how often the bus has to turn around or we're switching buses in middle of the Interstate or something. Now we're really not on precise, exact schedule. I changed to the next Amtrak.
Bakersfield... is not ped friendly:
This walk left me repeatedly navigating highway intersections without any ped facilities -- ie, playing Frogger. Other people were just walking along the tracks including over train bridges over highways, but I didn't want to get in trouble. This city seems to be aspiring to be LA by copying the horrible bits. No doubt there's cultural influence there. There's evidence of a city bus system but one of the most horrifying things on Earth is bus stop signs but zero other evidence of bus infrastructure including lack of shelters or pull outs and oh you know say actual buses anywhere.
No city wants to be a fly-over city but for some reason, they're perfectly happy being some other city's cloverleaf. We need different designations for city and toilets along the highway. I love Bakersfield.
Because of all of the Frogger, and being a bit encumbered, the walk took longer than expected. Moving the train 1.75 hours back worked out just right.
My instinct to make sure I was getting on the right train had to be suppressed as the signs at the station didn't indicate when the train was leaving, when it was boarding, which train it was, or anything really, and it just started boarding. I'm rough on my geography, but even in my sleep deprived state, I remembered that only one train goes down there, unlike every other stop I use.
Waiting on the train, it's white people again, mostly from LA, I'm guessing. Almost all of them look like having to wait until just before the departure time is ruining their life. They're probably right -- the urban hustle probably is killing them. One guy got on with nothing but a skateboard and a large stuffed unicorn. He was chill. I wish I were better at chill. I have work hard at it.
Train is out of Mac and Cheese. Might try again to pick out food in a bit here. Supplies are running low.
On the way, I got an email from SACDELBAYDELMRIODELMAR that they changed the bathroom codes again and please stop letting the ransacking armies through the gates so pooping opportunities continue to be limited which is good reasons to eat a proper meal on the train, if I can find one.
This may not be the optimal route... or even more horrifyingly, it might be.
