Hail to the beard (and a long journey by bus)

SUMMER 1975  - my second great adventure in travel.  

The first was in 1973 when I spent a month in east Africa (mostly Kenya but with a few days in Tanzania) with a group of men from my Seminary (St. John's College, Nottingham, U.K.).

In 1975 after eight weeks of "labouring in the Lord's Vineyard" helping to run Vacation Bible Schools in Western Massachusetts, my girl friend Ann flew from LHR to JFK.  I met her there and we began our long trip by 'bus around the U.S.A. and Canada.

Are they still in business?

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Of course you'd like to meet Ann!

Here are some of the statistics:

The trip lasted for twenty nine days.   We slept on the 'bus for eleven nights, in a run down New Orleans Hotel for two nights, in a nice Hotel in Vancouver for one night, and in the homes of friends and acquaintances (may their memory be held sacred!) for the balance.

And those long journeys.  

New York to New Orleans Thirty four hours - changing buses in Atlanta (about which you will read tomorrow).

New Orleans to Memphis  Fourteen Hours

Memphis to Tulsa Nine hours - changing buses in Muskogee (about which place I remember not a thing!)

Tulsa to Flagstaff  Sixteen hours

Flagstaff to Salt Lake City  Fourteen hours

Salt Lake City to San Francisco Sixteen hours

In San Francisco I bought my ticket for a flight home from NYC-LHR, having bought a one way from LHR-BOS at the begiing of the summer.

(Remember when tickets were hand written and placed in a nice cardboard folder).

San Francisco to Bellingham WA Twenty Seven hours (including a long wee hours layover and bus change from Trailways to Greyhound in Portland, OR. on a hot and humid night in a crummy area of town, and another long wait in Seattle (with time for sight seeing).

Vancouver BC to Calgary AL Seventeen Hours (a midnight 'bus from Vancouver, through the moonlit Rockies - I refused to sleep so as to enjoy the mountains).

Calgary AL to Toronto, ON.  Fifty six hours on the same damn 'bus: the scenery in Saskatchewan and Manitoba is same after same after same for hundreds of miles!  It got more lovely east of  Winnipeg)

Toronto to Boston Eighteen Hours with a break in the journey at the Canadian Niagara Falls on a rainy day, and a mean and miserable layover between 'buses in Buffalo.

Boston to Washington DC - Eleven Hours  back-tracking a bit to visit friends from St. John's, Nottingham now completing their studies at the Virginia Theological Seminary.

I kept a log of the journey and a daily journal so I have an accurate record of the length of the 'bus rides.

Total, about 9,500 miles

It was a great adventure. (I had no idea at the time that I would return to the U.S.A to live, so back then I thought of it as a once in a lifetime experience).  It was tough sledding in some ways, but we saw more of the two countries than if we had flown.  And we got some sense of the differences  in culture and topography of the different States and Provinces.

I'll wrap up this series tomorrow by telling you of some of the wonders of America and Canada which we wide eyed Bristolians enjoyed (or not!).

And the beard which I grew that summer?

Here it is some eleven weeks after that photo'  of a beardless Povey at the beginning of the summer.

This photo' was taken in Calgary when we were visiting my long time Bristolian friend Marilyn and her (now former) husband David.