Greyhound Bus Lines, Inc.

My mom and my sister looking on as my bus departs.

In good-old fashioned American spirit, I am not only on a trip hundreds of miles away from home (Miami to Tallahassee, the capital of the Sunshine State), I am also about to write a blog post (complete with pictures) on the experience it was getting here in the first place.

For several reasons, bringing my own, or being delivered in a, motor vehicle was not an option for this week-long trip, during which I am residing, free of cost, at Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University for a journalism workshop sponsored and funded by the Dow Jones Industrial Fund and NBC Universal. Talk about a hookup.

The bus ride over was ... substandard. Cramped seating and awkwardness with the person seated next to me were characteristic of the voyage, but besides that, it would've been OK had it not been for my post-scriptural discovery that I could've made an express reservation for only $5 more, which would've landed me a seat aboard one of Greyhound's new buses equipped with extra legroom, Wi-Fi, and  power outlets! And I thought I'd done my research.

The trajectory.

The one thing that I did feel throughout the entire trip was an unmatched sense of independence closely tied to the premises of the spirit of the American traveler. I finally felt like one of the kids in those movies about runaways that scrape up thirty or forty bucks and take the next bus to the next state with their only luggage being an oversize carry-on.

Not that I'm running away, though, of course.

I'll update the blog with the results of the workshop - which promises to be much more rewarding than the bus ride to and fro - at the end of the week!

Greyhound Bus Lines, Inc.