God's Grace Abounds

Be advised, this is going to be a long post. If you can't read the entire post at once, at least go to the end and read the last few paragraphs. (And by the way, don't forget to check out the sidebar on this blog--I add to it, change it and revise it regularly. Also, take the poll and check out the "thought to ponder". Don't forget, there's a place to leave comments at the end of each post--I check that frequently and would love to see some comments about the posts--good, bad, indifferent--I will reply if necessary).

Here we go. Friday morning I left the house at 5:45 am to catch the Greyhound bus in Amsterdam in order to get back to Maine to retrieve my car. The bus stopped in Schenectady and then Albany, where there was about a 1 1/2 hour layover. Okay--Question: what does one do when stuck in the bus terminal in Albany. (Anyone ever there? It's not the most exciting terminal I've ever been in.) Answer: get out the camera and start taking photos (of course) . So I wandered around, and then I saw some sculptures outside...

I love this sculpture, I just think it's too bad that there's no other landscaping around it to make it look better.

Once we were traveling on the bus, there was a girl across the aisle and up one row who was knitting. I knit too, so it was pretty interesting to watch her, since her technique is different than mine.

The first stop was in Worcester, MA. A nice little depot. While waiting on the bus, I took a few shots out the window.

We arrived at Boston's South Station around 1:15. It was a beautiful day. I was beginning to journal in my head. Although I usually carry pen and paper with me, I didn't have an iota of paper this time, so I bought a little spiral and began jotting thoughts and ideas in it. The following is verbatum what I wrote during the remainder of the day.

"This trip is a hoot! Haven't done this since college when it would take me 36 hours to get to North Dakota by bus.

Wonderful People-watching opportunities. Some very strange sights. I always think, 'there goes someone who was some mother's precious, sweet baby just a few years ago...' I know you can't judge a person's heart, soul or spiritual condition by their clothes, body piercings or hair, but it seems to point in certain directions.

South Station in Boston is quite the place. It has umpteen bus terminals, several floors, a food court, guards all over and warnings about 'unknown persons and suspicious packages'. There are people all over--a good number of them are students.

It's a photo-rich environment, just the facility itself, never mind the people milling around.

Our MVP (Mohawk Valley Photographers) upcoming assignment is to make pre-determined words out of objects we see. Find objects that resemble each letter in the word--my words are 'wish' and 'hope'. I think I managed to find a 'w', an 's' and an 'i' during my layover in Albany.

Oh, by the way, as I mentioned earlier, my bus left from Amsterdam at 6:20 am. If I had checked the complete schedule I would have discovered that I could have left my house at 8:45 am and still caught the bus in Albany on time. Oh well, just think of all the photos I would have missed, and I wouldn't have gotten my three letters. There's a silver lining behind every cloud/mistake if you just look for it.

What are two rules every photographer should follow unceasingly??? You've heard this before:

1. Always, always carry your camera with you and

2. Always look behind you to see where you've come from and to see what you can see. Sometimes the best shots are seen when you turn around.

I'm sitting outside the Boston terminal as I write this. The sun is shining, the breeze is blowing and the temperature is invigorating. It reminds me a lot of downtown Manhattan on a Fall day.

It's 2:30--my bus doesn't leave till 5:15

I started walking down the street toward what looked like Chinatown--many street vendors selling fruits/vegetables, some selling trinkets.

I passed a nice looking restaurant and decided to look at the menu they had conveniently posted in the window. Wonderful. I treated myself to Stir-fry Sweet and Sour chicken. Yum!

As I was waiting for my food order, I once again realized that God is good. What a treat this day is turning out to be, considering it's such an imposition--a 14 hour bus trip to retrieve my car, which cost a fortune to fix, considering Frank probably could have repaired it for a fraction of that cost had it broken down at home--and considering the trip by car is only about 6 1/2 hours long.

While wandering around Chinatown I came upon this group (one of several) of men watching others play what looked like Checkers. They were in a small park-like area where there were several tables and chairs available for these games. I've heard of this type of thing happening in various places--parks in Manhattan, Central Park, etc., so it was fun to see it in person.

On the way back to the terminal I came upon this scene. There were several fire truck, many firemen, and a lot of people standing around watching. Was there a fire or not??? Never got the answer, but it was interesting to watch them. Sure wish I had had my "real" camera for this situation...

Shooting the people watching is fun too.

Okay, so continuing on my way, just outside the terminal was this bike (or part of) chained to a pole. Check out the battery sitting on the ground next to it. Could the owner be confused about the real method of getting the bike started? I don't know much about mechanics, but I know enough to realize that the battery won't get the bike going--a little comic relief I thought.

Moving along--I found a place to sit and eat my stir fry and I was reading my photo magazine. Here's a question for all you photographers...What's the best camera to use? ANS: The one you have with you at the time.

Okay, when boarding the bus, there were headsets on the front seat and I noticed that people were just taking them, so I did too. On the back of the seat in front of us were connections for music. Okay, let's try this. The first station was country--wow, uninterrupted country music. Euraka!!!! After a while we stopped at a terminal for a short break. As I returned to the bus, there was a cart just outside the bus door that had complimentary bottles of water and bags of pretzels.

Do you recall one of my previous posts when I mentioned that Portland deferred my parking ticket? Now I was being treated to complimentary water, pretzels and headsets. (Doesn't sound like much, but it sure is good PR.) Okay--find me a place in NY where that would happen. I knew I liked New England--too bad their politics are so liberal.

Well, by now it was dark. It gets dark too early... The bus began making more frequent stops at smaller terminals--smaller as in --pull off to the side of the road, and maybe there will be a store nearby. So I began wondering how I was going to find the service station where my car was. The repairman had told me that he thought the bus stop was about 1/4 mile from the repair shop. Okay, not a bad walk, good weather, small town (not exactly a high crime area). The question was, do I go left or right once I get off the bus?

I guess I'm too dumb to be worried--I figured there must be someone else on the bus who would be getting off when I did. By now it was 9:15 pm. Sure enough, a young lady got off with me. I asked her if she lived in the area and she said she lived in S. Bristol (ironically the exact town we had stayed in just last week). But she didn't know where I wanted to go because she was new to the area. I was trying to figure out what to do next, when her friend walked up--she showed up to give her friend a ride home.

She knew exactly where I needed to go, but she said it was a bit more than 1/4 mile--"Okay, I said, can you point me in the right direction? " God said, through her, "Well, I'll just give you a ride". I laughed out loud. The icing on the cake of my great day, was God's grace abounding through this girl in the form of a totally unexpected ride, which, by the way, was at least 1/2 mile--not an awful distance, but far enough at that time of night and my level of fatigue.

Well, I got my car, started home, and felt so good that I drove straight through, arriving home at 4 am.

Throughout the day, knowing that God was in control of the entire situation, I kept thinking of that saying, "when someone gives you lemons, just make lemonade out of them". Not the most spiritual way of putting it, but true nonetheless.