7:15am --Alarm goes off. Hit snooze once. Shower. Leave for work.
8:30am-11:30am -- Work.
11:30am-12:50pm -- Drive to bus station at the Maryland Travel Plaza. Get required passes for parking, pick up bus ticket, wait for bus.
12:50pm-4:30pm -- Ride bus to the Port Authority bus terminal in NYC. Listened to some DFW readings, latest David Byrne/Brian Eno album, et al.
4:30pm-7:30pm -- Arrive at the Port Authority bus terminal in NYC. Walk around Times Square a little bit. Buy some beers and a bag of Doritos. Walk around a little more. Get approached by a man who asks, "Is your name Augustine?" Take beer and Doritos and hunker down across the street from the back door of the Letterman show. For some reason, this is my absolute favorite place in New York. It's a good place to people watch, and it's out of the way. I saw, in order: Bill Hader, Calista Flockhart, various Late Show band members, Alan Kalter, and Paul Schaffer. Then walk to Schlueter's hotel, just around the corner.
7:30pm-10:45pm -- Schlueter arrives at hotel, we walk to restaurant in neighborhood. Some type of pub. I get my steak, have beers. Schlueter gets a wrap of some sort, has beers. We talk about lots of things. Good time.
10:45pm -- I check my phone and see that my bus leaves in 45 minutes. Pay tab, quick goodbye on 8th Avenue.
10:45pm-11:20pm -- Run down 8th Ave. a few blocks to the Port Authority bus terminal, which is large and confusing. I ask the person at the information desk if she knows where my bus will be leaving from. She says Gate 74. I find Gate 74 with a few minutes to spare. Above Gate 74, one of the destinations listed is the Maryland Travel Plaza (my destination), so I figure I am in the right spot. There is no bus and no people there. I wait for the bus to arrive.
12:15am -- Still no bus. I ask a Greyhound baggage dude walking by if he knows when the bus will arrive. He tells me that my bus left from Gate 78. He says that the next bus will be at 3:45am and that it will take me to downtown Baltimore, not the Maryland Travel Plaza.
12:15am-3:45am -- Fitful sleeping on the floor of the Port Authority bus terminal. Buzz from beers going away rapidly and unpleasantly.
3:45am -- Board bus to Baltimore. More fitful sleeping on bus.
5am-ish -- Vomit in bathroom at back of bus. Thank god for gum.
7am -- Arrive at downtown Baltimore bus terminal. Wait for transfer to Maryland Travel Plaza.
9am -- Arrive at Maryland Travel Plaza.
9:45am -- Arrive home. Poop.
So it was good to see Schlueter. Would I do it all over again? Yes. I would probably just have the Doritos, though, and not the beers before dinner. And I would ask someone different where I was supposed to catch my bus. But other than those 2 things, it was a really fun trip.
