Kiery's Very Complicated Very Long Travel Day

I took a couple naps in between bounties for Destiny, and then I walked outside with my suitcase and laptop bag to discover a snowstorm happening. We drove slowly and quietly in the snow that was very hard to see through until we got to the bus stop. I got on the bus, watched Robin Hood: Men in Tights and noted with increasing anxiety how far away we were from my stop as the time between our arrival and my trains departure grew ever closer together.
I chose this bus because it would get me to the train station with about an hour to spare.
We had 10 minutes before my train left and the driver decided to make a stop for the commuters right before dropping us off at our destination, almost an hour later than scheduled.
He pulled up behind a stopped car, that shouldn’t have been stopped, but was because snow. Where we waited, and waited, moments feeling like hours as 8:15 drew steadily closer and not only had the commuters not gotten off, but the car didn’t move. He let the commuters out into a snow bank, and resumed waiting to merge into the lane of traffic we should have been in, originally.
By the time we pulled out into traffic, it was approaching 8:20. My train had almost certainly left, without me on it, all because one bus driver made an unscheduled stop that resulted in waiting in even more traffic. If I had been able to get out and walk,I would have. Had I been able to get to my bag, I would have almost certainly made the train, but that was not an option I had. So I arrived at the train station, almost 8:30 now, bag in tow, boiling with rage, attempting to calmly find a customer service representative to see if it was even possible to continue my journey – at great expense to me in both time and money.
It was. For $130 I could catch a train to DC where I could then get on another train and finish my commute south to see my friends for my birthday. It seemed like a promising chance to hopefully right an abysmal bus drive and not have to cancel my birthday plans, so I took it.
 
This train, my dear readers……..was supposed to arrive almost 3 hours ago, at the time of this writing. Shortly after our departure we started having engine trouble, which resulted in hefty delays at each stop in Connecticut until we finally made it to one stop where they had another engine, which we then waited at while they put it on this train. Connecticut is a long state to get through, but today, exponentially so. I got on this train in Boston at 9:30am, and we didn’t get out of Connecticut until somewhere between 3 and 4pm – well after we were supposed to have been out and dropped off passengers in New York and New Jersey. I was to arrive in DC somewhere around 5pm and board a later train at 6pm.
 
It is currently 8:07 PM and we just exited the Delaware stop and are approaching Baltimore.
 
If I had made my original train, I would be mere minutes from my end point by now. As it is, I’m still hours north of where I need to be and by the time I get into DC there are no buses or trains taking me past my destination until tomorrow morning. By the time I get there, I will have had an almost 12 hour train ride on one train, just not the train I was supposed to be on.
 
All I want right now is some food, coffee, and a burrito of blankets and pillows. Tomorrow I get to start part two of my journey which will hopefully, if all goes to plan (and I’m not holding my breath at this point) involve renting a car and driving myself.
 
Other adventures today have included: very few vegetarian options on the cafe car, an anti-planned parenthood propaganda pamphlet in the bathroom (I suspect delivered by the lady giving off all the religious vibes who was sizing me up earlier) which I promptly trashed and buried with paper towels, and computer rescue due to the person in front of me reclining too fast and almost locking my laptop in between the chair and tray.
 
On the upside, I’ve successfully managed not to sit beside anyone today.