"We're stopping already," Molly observed. The Greyhound had barely approached the speed limit before we stopped and loaded more passengers in Bowling Green, 20 miles south of Toledo. I was disappointed by the scenery through Indiana and Illinois. Cornfields and barns led to more cornfields and barns as darkness approached. We were pumped up and chatty for the first six hours then mellowed out into morning. We were awake all night because of stops, starts and transfers. We changed buses three times by Des Moines and were eventually delayed enough to miss an important connection in Omaha. The next bus going west would depart in four hours.

"This is freaking me out," Robin announced, as we chewed on sandwiches we got from a bus station vending machine. I thought she was referring to the sandwich, until she elbow-pointed toward a man seated cross-legged on a nearby bench. He had white facial features, but he was so dirty it was difficult to tell for sure. He was shoeless and his dreadlocked head was bent over a foot. He was picking something out of his toes. "Gag," said Janice.

"Which reminds me, we have to stop sitting in the back of the bus. The smell of the bathroom is making me sick," said Molly. "Which reminds me," I said, "thank God they kicked that drunk guy off in Dubuque. I thought he was going to puke on us all." "Which drunk guy, DC?  There were so many," Robin said, making a sad, funny point. "I need a bath."  Molly pretended to smell her own armpits as she said this. "It's not exactly the glamorous, cross-country trip Mumsy had planned for us," I added in my best imitation of Mrs. Drysdale from The Beverly Hillbillies.  Janice, who had been chainsmoking since we left Toledo, blew a big smoke ring.

.

Although Molly and Janice were 16 and had learner's permits, Robin and I had late birthdays and were still 15. Greyhound's motto was "Leave The Driving To Us." And we did, for what seemed like an eternity through Nebraska. There was the occasional charming town and the not-so-charming bus depot we passed through. Night was falling for the second time on the trip. We had been on the road 29 hours by the time we reached Cheyenne.

After Omaha we'd tried to spread out instead of sitting together, attempting to get some sleep. We were also taking advantage of the luxury of the newest bus we'd been on. Molly was across the aisle from me. We were in the back, smoking section. She was draped over two seats and deeply dozing from exhaustion and Dramamine. We'd all slept some, on and off. Nobody had slept more than a total of three hours. We didn't have to get off to change buses in Cheyenne. But, a couple dozen passengers boarded our luxury bus.

A small-faced, medium-built woman sat down next to me. I nodded and smiled in the dim light. I should have kept my eyes shut and kept dozing. Sometimes courtesy doesn't pay off. She instantly began to chatter on. "I'm going to Denver to visit my ex-husband and pick up a car. I haven't been able to drive for years, because I couldn't fit behind the steering wheel," she informed me. I opened my eyes wider, for a better look. She wasn't more than five-and-a-half feet tall, my own height. She seemed pleased by my blank stare.

"I used to weigh 425 pounds. The doctors said my obesity would kill me before I turned 50. So, I had my jaw wired shut. I lost 280 pounds in the last 18 months," she beamed, like a little girl describing a new puppy. Puppy? She's lost the equivalent of two large greyhounds. Apparently Chatterbox had a lot to say after they'd unwired her jaw. I was lucky enough to be in the audience. As she and the bus rambled on into the night, I'd occasionally nod, then nod off. Where's a doctor when you need one, to do a quick re-wire, I thought. "I can't wait to see the look on my ex's face. He's not gonna recognize me."

After an hour or ten, I looked across the aisle at Molly, hoping for a rescue. A man with a large afro had edged his way into the window seat next to her, sometime after the Cheyenne stop. Molly's head was bobbing side to side as the bus rounded curves in the winding road. Amidst the hairiness of her mane and the huge afro next to her I noticed a hand, which wasn't Molly's, on her knee. I reached across Chatterbox and smacked Molly's shoulder, since the offending hand was out of my reach. Afro man immediately recoiled as I shot him a hard glance. He repositioned himself toward the window pretending to look intently for something in the darkness. "Are we there yet?" Molly asked sleepily. "I wish," I said. "C'mon, we're going to the bathroom, grab your purse." I excused myself from Chatterbox and pulled Molly up from her seat. Instead of walking toward the back of the bus, I pushed Molly forward into an open seat behind the driver. "Hey, buddy, we need a bodyguard back there." And some duct tape, I thought.

.

We reached Denver in the middle of the night. Our last bus transfer was about to be the most memorable. The bus transporting us to Steamboat was on another bus line, a Greyhound partner. The depot for that bus line was located in a hotel nearby. We grabbed our heavy, standard-issue, parent-borrowed luggage and limped out into the darkness. Samsonite did not have wheels in the 1970s. We walked and moaned in the direction a Greyhound employee had pointed us. Our first glimpse of downtown Denver was an old man urinating on the side of an even older building.

A small crowd of flamboyantly overdressed women in stiletto heels paced and smoked as we passed the corner of the first city block. "You bitches better get outta here. This ain't no neighborhood for runaways,"  one of the "ladies" warned us. "Besides, the mens that comes around don't like real girls." Curiousity turned me around for a second look, after that remark. One of the not-so-real girls had pulled up her skirt and was waving something at us from her crotch area. I was certain it wasn't a gun. "Run," I screamed, and we did.

As we approached the corner of the second block two police officers casually walked toward us. "Where-are-we-going-at-two-in-the-morning?" The clever cop attempted a rhyme. "Trailways Station," Robin answered nervously. We were all out of breath, but lit cigarettes anyway. We finally had bodyguards. "Girls, there's no way you should be out here, any time of day or night. Don't you know this is the Hill District?"  "We're from Toledo," Janice explained. "Is that in Canada?" asked the dumb one. "No, Ohio. You're thinking of Toronto," I tried not to sound condescending as I answered.

The cops told us it was another five blocks to our destination. They hailed us a cab. As the cabbie loaded our luggage into the trunk, Molly whispered in my ear "His fly's unzipped."  "It could be by accident," I said. Unconvinced, she whispered "We'll all squeeze into the back, pass it around."

.

It was early morning. The last couple hours, since daybreak, the scenery was truly breathtaking. The mountains were palaces in the sky and we were part of the kingdom. The bus was both our caterpillar and our cocoon. Impatient teenagers in the cubbyhole of life, we were waiting to emerge into the beauty and power around us. We were waiting on the butterfly.

Thirty-nine hours after our departure, six hours behind schedule, we arrived in Steamboat Springs. So, it was no surprise that no one was there to pick us up, unless you counted two strangers in cowboy hats and boots, who looked like they might want to rope us. Janice called her Aunt from a pay phone. "My Uncle Doug is coming to get us. But he won't be here for an hour."  We walked out into Steamboat's downtown streets while we waited. It looked both rustic and updated with renovated, historic landmarks. The old west had met a new paintbrush.

Janice's uncle arrived in a vintage Ford pickup that had not met a new paintbrush. He hugged Janice then looked at the rest of us and our luggage. "You all going to Summer Breeze?" There was an emphasis on all and a look of surprise on his face.

Molly could barely keep the cigarette lit as she passed it to me in the back of the open truck bed. Robin hunkered down behind one of the suitcases to block the wind, while Janice rode up front with her uncle and a golden retriever named Ringo.

The building was a huge A-frame, with a brick foundation. Several different colors of paint adorned the outside front entrance, like they'd used what was left in an assortment of cans. Janice said that it was a trapping lodge when her aunt and uncle bought it. But they rented rooms year-round now and trappers were not their only guests. According to Janice there were also artists and musicians. None of us liked the idea of trapping animals. We'd talked about meeting some cool guys. "Maybe Cat Stevens will be staying there," Molly had joked. They named the lodge Summer Breeze, the same name as their daughter. Very Seals and Croft.

Janice's Aunt Donna was hanging clothes on a line, by the side of the house. Cool, they still do things the old-fashioned way. A little girl was riding a rusty tricycle on the rocky lawn. As Donna lifted her arms to pin a pair of jeans onto the line I noticed the dark brown tufts of hair in her pits. Gross. Summer Breeze rode the tricycle toward us and Donna practically bolted over.

There was no hug. "What is going on? You said you might bring a friend. You did not say three. What were you thinking?"  Janice could not hide her embarrassment. The rest of us exchanged looks of bewilderment. "Well I'm sorry to disappoint you, but you can't stay," said Donna. Janice looked at Doug, who shrugged his shoulders. Either these people have a wicked sense of humor or we're going to take turns killing Janice.

Continued—»