It's America. The usual reminders are there: Flag stickers on bumpers and windows, flags modified to give ornaments new stars and stripes clothing.

30 minutes until the bus leaves. I get out to explore a little while. Inside the station, the atmosphere of a hospital waiting room and the bad air-conditioning heat of a hostel lobby.

I check the vending machines for any new candy-covered, chocolate, possibly fatal heart attack-makers waiting to happen. Everything's a dollar.

The stop restaurant is a 24 hour Chinese food buffet, charging $3.99 per pound of food. A surely torturous scheme for the fat and cheap.

The massive McDonalds across the street and the station is divided by a road, resembling the Frogger screen the vintage gamers would recognise, or the Seinfeld episode parodying it. The skills necessary to help the frog cross helped me in some way (ie: I didn't use my joystick).

Chilled, and with a slight hint of family music from the vintage jukebox, I check the latest fat-formed, grease-drizzling concoction in-between two pieces of unnatural bread. Almost everything is a dollar. I had to leave, but not without seeing the 16 soft drink fountain oasis located near the door.

I walked to the road, back to Frogger-hopping. A car with an elderly couple flag me to pass with a smile. I gobble up their kindness as a once-off, and a reminder that America has the possibility to not invade every piece of territory, even the road dividing McDonalds and China Room Diner.

Exploring the other side, cars parked display licence plates ranging to my desitnation of Massachusetts, to New York. The back of the Vermont SUV had a "Bush/Cheney '04" bumper sticker, but with the 'Bush' bit pulled off post-stickering. I wonder why Cheney wasn't ripped off as well. The Massachusetts SUV had the same sticker, but in pristine condition. New York's car was clean.

I get back to the bus and see that my seat is taken. Granted, I had a two-seater for half an hour before arriving here. She reminded me of the crazy, wavy-haired teacher with glasses in Harry Potter.

An announcement was made that a bus going to the Boston Airport we weren't going to was outside. As fast as she sat down, she got up and left.

As fate sometimes does, it tempts you with an empty seat to spread your designated area. Like a fool, I positioned myself for optimal comfort. In front of me, a guy with a Mexican/Cuban accent has a sneezing fit. His seat partner, a larger man with a black cowbot hat, black jeans and a shirt of a guitar volume knob going "up to 11" dashes for my right leg's designated area. Oh, cruel fate. Must you haunt me with such tomfoolery?

His friend sitting on the other side was a balding, thick eyebrow/lashed old guy with missing teeth and what looked like mascara on. They were chuckling like seedy weasels when the free seat in front of us was taken by an attractive blonde. The old guy seemed to have stared at her most of the ride to Boston. I wanted to hit the guy for being a perve, but his cowboy friend probably wouldn't agree. Or my face.

One lesson I have learned from this trip so far in Burlington, halfway to Boston, is that from Calgary to Montreal...that was a test. If you can last 60 hours in a Greyhound bus, you've gained a skill most do not acquire due to the risk of losing sanity.