St. Louis-Hyannis via Greyhound Pt. 1

[CapeCodder]

In June of 2012, I moved back to Massachusetts. I had no money to fly, and at that point I had no vehicle (The engine blew up, and needed to be replaced.) I decided that Greyhound was the best way to go.

Departure time: 4:25 AM June 21st from St. Louis.

We wound our way through the city, going wb on Market Street, and utilized the partial/ghost interchange that was supposed to connect 755. We got onto 64 and headed over the PSB. We were now in Illinois.

East St. Louis at 4:45 in the morning is pretty interesting. "Viaduct City" as I called it in my youth was bustling with activity. IIRC there was some construction on the interchange to EB 64. The trip from ESL to Troy was quick. At Troy, we exited onto 70 from 55. The sun was coming up and it was pretty bright. Off to our north, there was a dying line of thunderstorms that was still well in central MO. We passed Vandalia at 5:30. I took out my portable radio and was amazed to hear the St. Louis stations this far east (Not really that amazed, as I could get them in my truck radio; but this was one of those Grundig radios, so selectivity wasn't as good.) We passed Effingham a little while later.

The leg from Effingham to Terre Haute was uneventful. There was some construction at that point. Once in Indiana, time seemed to fly.

We pulled into Indianapolis, across from Lucas Oil Stadium. The terminal was okay. I had one of those convenience store pizzas from the counter inside. I also bought a pack of smokes.

At 10:45 ET we departed and moved onto our next destination: Dayton-Trotwood.

70 was smooth sailing for a Thursday. Once past 465, the highway really opened up. Richmond was the same as I had remembered it from the great road trips of 1995 and 2001. We passed the archway that welcomes one into Ohio. We exited onto OH SR 49 and went into Trotwood. The place isn't that great. There was a mentally unstable person onboard that freaked a lot of the female passengers out, and the driver left him there.

We departed the way we came, we turned onto Hoke Road and reentered 70. The trip to Springfield was pretty short.

Springfield is laid out kind of funny. The road we were on was about as wide as an arterial road in St. Louis County. The stop was in this little shopping plaza. There was a "free store" there that had signs saying you needed to have I think three forms of identification.

We were running late now. The driver got us back onto 70 and we rocketed eastward.

Columbus was a "hole." The traffic was backing up and we resorted to using side streets. We finally made it to the terminal with minutes to spare. It was here that we changed buses. We finally left at about 3:15 PM.

I was now on a bus that was a part of the Lake Front Line. One bus went to Cleveland. Cleveland was different. We didn't stay too long. When we left, we took OH 2 and looped around and headed onto 90, where we would remain on the rest of the journey.