If you’ve never ridden a Greyhound bus – or FlixBus, or whatever the current incarnation is – your stereotype is probably true. You have no control. Some of the people around you are questionable. You don’t know when you’ll arrive. Sometimes there’s a to-do and you get nervous and clutch your things. People are loud and shameless, talking at length about things you’re supposed to whisper. Meth, psychosis, DUIs, felonies, cancer, rehab, and always, ultimately, money.

Long distance bus rides mean being trapped for hours with other people’s troubles. But I’ve found something more.