June 27, 2009.

It suddenly came rushing back to me just why I always looked forward to the weekends. No work. Anyway…..

On Thursday evening we were pleased to be able to host the youngest girlchild and 3 of her friends from school. It was brutally hot but the girls were good sports about the heat. After dinner and a few drinks they even got into the nautical spirit. It was good to have them aboard and we look forward to seeing them again later in the year.


Today we decided to try a different bus line and a trip to a different grocery store. We walked into town and found ourselves in the midst of a cross country bicycle race finish line. I can’t imagine riding a damn bike all the way across the entire country.




So we got up to town just in time to miss the bus we wanted to take. The next one was due to arrive in an hour. We decided to take an alternate bus so we tried to chat the driver up as we boarded in an effort to make sure we would end up where we wanted to. Evidently actually having to interact with the public wasn’t in this guy’s job description. Talk about a nasty little power tripping piece of shit. In our 12 second interaction I started to understand the “other side” of those “deranged man kills bus driver” headlines.

We got where we wanted to go and after shopping we waited over an hour for the next bus back to town. This driver was a woman who was courteous to people’s faces but had nothing but snide remarks to make about the patrons after they exited the bus. Oh yeah, these buses don’t have air conditioning and are hotter than hell. We left the boat at around 11am, dinghied, walked, stood around waiting for buses, shopped for about 45minutes, and reversed the trip and got back to the boat at 3pm. Next time we will walk.

I really don’t understand how something as simple as a bus ride can be such an ordeal. We’ve ridden the bus in Miami, Vero Beach, Charleston, the Florida Keys and Washington, DC. We’ve been on buses in the poorest parts of huge cities. We’ve ridden buses where we’ve been the only English speaking people. We’ve ridden buses where we had a difficult time communicating with the driver because of a language barrier. But until today every bus driver we’ve met has gone out of their way to help us learn the ropes of their bus route. Every other bus line that we’ve ridden has always been a positive experience. Cleanliness, promptness, courteous drivers and a schedule that seems to make sense all have been common, except here in Annapolis. Don’t get me started about the traffic……