112 degrees, two mile hike... hallucinations

I found that, since there are fewer buses running on the weekend, that sometimes you might have to drive over to the main Transit Center to grab a bus without waiting for an hour or more for a layover. So that's what I did today. I wanted to go see sis and pick up some kolache's that I'd forgotten the day before.

Going from Austin to Pflugerville is fine, but getting to sis's is an almost 2 mile hike away from the transit center on a 112 degree day is a bit daunting and I was able to find the edges of my endurance and trod the razor line of a blister on a couple patches of skin on my foot. I'd successfully found the shortcut which probably took almost 3 miles off the trip and was happy that I only had to fjord one stream to get there. I arrived filthy and unacceptable and was not able to sit down so I stood for the short visit and went on my way. It seemed that the sun had gotten hotter on the return trip and I could barely hold on to my water bottle as it slipped from my sweaty palms as I plotted my path to take advantage of the long shadows provided by utility poles for a brief respite from the beating rays of the sun.

I was glad I took with me my Barmah canvas drover hat, given to me by my father as a gift several years ago and I attribute it's ample brim and excellent cooling structure with my ultimate survival. The trip may have proved much more painful without this halo of brim taking the brunt of the rays.

I'd taken with me a change of clothes so by the time I got to my stop, I had donned a clean shirt and felt a step closer to civilization.

More Lies!

So my bus shows up or at least I think it's my bus and I ask the driver, "Is this the X bus to X?" He says in broken English, "Yes, but not for another 30 minutes." I find it odd that the schedule says one time but he's telling me another. I figure it's one of those "unscheduled breaks" that I'd read about from detractors of the system, but no, this bus has miraculously turned into another bus, one that parallels the ride of the other one that I'd INTENDED on taking. This trip bore no resemblance to the one I requested clarification on. As I'm sitting during this "downtime," I see another bus, one with the proper designation, blast past me and my idling bus. I think I heard the bus laughing as it sped off. At least it's a weekend and I didn't have anywhere to be on time. Yay! Learned something new today.