Ben and Jerry's. A stretch to far??

A terrible, terrible devastating, life altering, awful and ultimately grave moment occurred today. A moment so sad that even an extra large iced coffee couldn’t make better. A moment so tear jerking that even winning a free carton of fries wouldn’t settle our crying souls. And what was this horrific moment? Well I can hardly bring myself to type the words.  It was the moment we realised we were no longer going to be able to visit...the Ben and Jerry’s factory in Vermont. And why was this? Why did we have to dash our dreams, destroy our hopes and make such a big decision? Well our reasons were three fold. One - Going eight hours out of our way and arriving in the middle of nowhere in the dark seemed a daunting prospect to say the least. Two - There is no public transport in Montpellier on a sunday so there was no way to reach the campsite. Three - Every time we rang the campsite to try and book the line would cut off and the only thing we heard each time was that we couldn’t just turn up without a reservation!

I looked at Ollie and hardly able to believe the words leaving my lips I conceded that perhaps travelling to Vermont was just a stretch to far for two people reliant on the public transport network. Sad as it was to admit we just couldn’t find a solution to this problem. So with heavy hearts we decided to go straight to Buffalo. This meant spending another day in Boston, the city we have seen more times in the last four days than most places in England! The city that is having a giant heat wave and just walking a few block is too much to bare! We love Boston...just not as much as it apparently loves us!

So what to do when you’re already trying to cut back spending, have 8 hours to kill and are grieving? 

Well. Deciding now was the time to buy a mobile phone so making future reservations would be easier we found a shop and chose the cheapest mobile going. The whole process should have been super easy but of course this is Ollie and I and nothing with us is ever straight forward. One hour later we emerged from the shop. Something had gone wrong during the set up and although it was amusing to her the girl behind the counter try and say ‘Oliver’ in her best English accent, waiting around to buy a crappy mobile wasn’t exactly the best way to get over B&J-gate (with the gravitas of such a tragedy it seems only fair to give it a name).

To cheer ourselves up we found a Starbucks and ordered Iced Coffees. But even that tranquility was short lived. The coffee house closed at 3! It seems Americans still hold Sundays as a day of rest; most shops are closed today. So to the park we went. Here at least we could find shade, a little peace and amazingly more free wifi (I would actually move to America the WiFI is so good here!).

This has been a frustrating day. We haven’t got anywhere yet! I only hope that once in Buffalo we continue to move at a pace and that all roads don’t lead back to Boston! To show just how pants the day has been I will tell you the highlights!

One - We won a free medium fries from McDonalds.

Two - We won a free smoothie from McDonalds.

Three - Ollie found an emergency whistle built into a clip on his back pack.

* * *

I should add in this entry just how great Ollie is being. He sorts everything, arranges everything, pays for everything while I just walk around tripping over curbs, walking into bollards (this actually happened in PTown and I went flying) getting in people’s way and talking too fast so that no one understands me. Without him I would still be stuck at the airport! I do intend to learn how the money system works before I leave the US but I keep getting very confused! But yes Ollie is amazing to travel with and I am very lucky to have him...I am not sure it works the other way though!

* * *

We got back to South Central station (the place we spend most of our time these days) and sat down to wait for our bus. With just over an hour to go and seeing which gate terminal we should wait at we went to get in line. As we approached our gate number our hearts sank. Stretched out for pretty much the whole bus terminal was a queue for our bus. How could we have been so dumb? We had sat down about 10 meters away for over an hour when we should have been queuing. Almost in tears I joined the back of the queue and Ollie went to see what would happen in the event of too many people booked in for one bus. 

He came back with good news for us but not such good news about the Greyhound bus service! The queue was so long because it was made up of two bus loads of people. Our bus, the 7.40 P.M, and an earlier bus, the 5.40 P.M. It was at this time about half past six and those passengers in front of us were getting restless. We stood there waiting and at no point did anyone from Greyhound come and explain to the delayed passengers what was going on. In the end Ollie and I decided to act as information helpers and directed passengers for various bus routes to their lines. Ollie also kept passengers in our line informed with updates to the whereabouts of their bus by continually going and questioning the completely useless GH staff! Eventually at 7.40 P.M the 5.40 P.M bus showed up, with ours just behind. Climbing onto our unusually hot and stuffy bus we were feeling pretty bad for the people who had been waiting so long. And things only got worse for those poor guys...

At midnight we arrived in Albany, and sat down to wait for our connecting bus. We had been there about 15 minutes when to our utter astonishment the 5.40 bus pulled up. We had beaten their bus! With nothing to do but laugh we stared on. Ollie even had to explain to the GH officials at Albany what had happened and what delay there had been...no one from their Boston office had even bothered to call ahead. Ollie received a very sincere ‘Thank you sir’.

Eventually we were back on a bus and headed for Niagra Falls. We would reach our destination at about 8 A.M. So with nothing left to do but sleep we plugged in our headphones and slipped away, into the road. Dreaming.

9/10/11