The Bus from Amarillo

Jean Sexton reports:

This trip was an exciting one and pretty amazing.

I got to work with the Steves in "their office". Steve Cole amazes me with the rapidity of his writing; Steven Petrick with the amount of care and diligence he uses to check materials for accuracy.

Leanna Cole is in some ways the heart of the operation. She understands the business end and all of the dollars and cents parts. She took the time to break things down into simple explanations so that I could see the implications.

And I did get a chunk of work done. Petrick and I made a good team checking the Ship Cards for Hydran Attack, although SVC nearly howled in anguish when he saw one was a sea of purple and green. Lots of progress was made on PD: Feds.

You know, I met the most amazing people during this trip.

The teacher from NYC who wants to write for TV, and said that if I had the courage to go off to Texas (the furthest west I had ever been) in order to follow a dream, she certainly should be brave enough to follow her dreams.

The young man from Senegal who spoke only French and verified with me if each stop were "Atlanta" and who was so tickled at my terrible French. I won't forget his "Au revoir, cheri," when we reached Atlanta.

The two guys who were heading to Amarillo and who worked out the system for really tight transfers that one of us would go straight for the next bus driver and point out the people trying to get luggage transferred.

The young couple expecting their first child and the love the fellow had in his eyes when he talked about possible names for the child.

The young soldier who said he wanted to jump out of perfectly good airplanes and was heading to Ft. Bragg.

The excitement of seeing new places a young girl had, her bravery in dealing with her sickle cell anemia, and the trust she had as she fell asleep with her head against me (her Mom was seated catercornered to me, and it did give her a bit of a break and let her sleep, too) .

The older gentlemen who knew that I had a tight transfer and held up the folks who were getting off for a smoke break so I could get off the bus and make that transfer in Columbia.

Mike Curtis and Tony Thomas (renewing that acquaintance) who stayed with me in Nashville.

Mark Thomas (again renewing an acquaintance) in the Amarillo bus stop--there is a new layer of seriousness about him.

While there were some bad things that happened this trip (the missed connection and the illness), they were so much outweighed by the good. I want to visit again.