The past two days (Thursday and today, Friday) I have been coming back home from Calgary for the wedding and my birthday. I may take a break as this has been a long and hard time for me as I do not like traveling very much. Our car broke down last Sunday, the day we just barely reached the city limits, and had to be picked up by my grampa. That day we spent over 10 hours in the car and of course it dies. We could not get it fixed until Tuesday because that was the long weekend in Canada. So on Tuesday we went to the dealer to get this problem solved. That had taken all day. The next day we were told that we were getting the part shipped to Calgary, though the funny thing was it was shipped to Edmonton. I was saying to myself: ‘This is becoming crazy!’ So the next day the part was in and we went on our first leg of the trip home, which took 8 hours. We then picked up our dog and went to sleep as it was pretty dark and late. Today I, as unfortunate as this may sound, had to take the bus from Penticton to Vancouver. Well The buses battery died at Princeton, and we had to wait atleast one and a half to two hours for the replacement bus to come from Merrit. So I got hungary and bought myself a hamburger. I wish Greyhound paid for my food as I was bored and had nothing to do. So anyways the bus finally comes as I finished my hamburger. The bus driver loads all our stuff into the other bus, of course we are already 2 hours behind schedule, and we start to drive towards Vancouver again. This guy keeps telling me to put the bag I have into the compartments above the seats but there is no room whatsoever. So in Chilliwack, that person has to transfer… I thought ‘yes now some peace from the seat beside me’, but nope less then two minutes later another person sits down beside me. 🙁 Though it is not like I can help it as all the other seats except the one in front and beside me were full.  So we start out again stopping in the following places: Abbotsford, Mission, Maple Ridge and finally Coquitlam. The bus seats stunk like rotten food, sweat and other smells put together and I really was glad to get out of there. Talk about a horrible bus trip. Oh and I forgot to tell you, On the way to Princeton, the buses battery was so low that we had to turn off the lights, the airconditioning and open the hatches to let in the breeze and we were on time to the first 3 stops, Keromeos, Hedley, and Princeton. Other then that I had a very relaxing ride from Penticton to Vancouver in all of 9 hours… talk about bad luck!

Ryan Orser

P.S. Total driving and waiting time of this trip was Thirty-Three Hours!