I have, in the past, suggested that the bus drivers in
Calgary were less than helpful. In fact I may have suggested that they were intentionally mean to anyone who wanted to leave their fair city. In spite of how I looked with a full pack on my
back, at least some of the drivers have had a hard time understanding that all I
wanted to do was to get out of town. On other occasions Calgarian bus drivers
have deposited me in some strange places. I have had to do a lot of
walking up steep hills or across long, not very friendly-to-pedestrian bridges. I have cursed Calgary bus drivers
more than any other of their profession. On this trip however, the Calgary bus
drivers were great.
During my sleepless night at the Husky gas station, I had
asked the clerks in the store as to how to get downtown to catch the C-Train
that would get me to the right station so that I could get a bus heading in the
general direction of west. Their directions sounded very easy - the next
morning, as soon as I saw a bus go by, I grabbed my pack, said a not very sentimental,
silent goodbye to the parking lot where I had spent the night and walked a
couple of hundred yards to the nearest bus stop. I got on the bus, paid my
money (if I had not had enough change the driver would have let me paid less),
got a transfer and then told the driver what I wanted. He promptly told me that
I was going in the wrong direction or rather that there was a faster way. He
stopped the bus, assured me that the transfer would be good and that a bus
going the opposite direction would be along shortly. I crossed the road and as
promised, a bus soon arrived at the bus stop.
I told my new bus driver what I needed, she assured me that
I was going in the right direction and that was it. It was a long ride and when
I got to the large bus/train stop I had a very long wait for the next bus.
There are, I guess, just not that many people going out past Olympic Park at
6:00 AM from downtown Calgary. However, a bus did eventually come - the driver
promised me that he could get me to a good place on the Trans-Canada outside
the city limits. And he did. The only problem was that I had to cross over the
Trans-Canada. If the traffic had been any busier - that could have been a
problem. The good news was that I did not have to walk up the long upward
inclined shoulder to get outside of where I have always supposed the city
limits were. The only bad news was that by the time the cars were passing me,
most of them were going 100 kilometres an hour.
It was, without a doubt, my easiest trip heading west through Calgary.
It feels as if I have finally mastered the Calgary bus system.
My first ride came fairly quickly. He was not going very far
but he promised to get me to the turn-off to highway 22 where there was a
restaurant and a gas station. I have been there before and I knew that there
was a reasonable shoulder and that from that point on, almost everyone who
would be going past me would be heading into the mountains. So often drivers
tell me that they are going to get me to a better place - so often they do not
have a clue what they are talking about
and I end up in a worse place. But this time it worked out great. It was
still early in the morning, I was out of Calgary and on the road again.
All I had to do was to stay awake for the next 18 hours or so.
