The Ultimate Bus Trip

is actually on a Boat!

My first date with my most recent companion/mate was on a bus. Yes, that was the date. We took the Fifth Avenue bus from Greenwich Village all the way to Washington Heights, an hour a half ride.  We then got really wild and transferred to another bus to go all the way to the Cloisters in Inwood Park) or possibly that was on our second date).

So of course it was a natural progression for us to get our Kadey Krogen.  How so?

Sitting on a bus, not driving, gives you the opportunity to see the world go by.  When we moved to the Bronx two years ago, I had the chance to take the MTA Express Bus to Midtown or the Upper East Side.  Even after having driven on the same exact route for 5 years commuting to my school in the Bronx, taking the bus was a revelation.  I saw all sorts of interesting sights that had eluded me as a driver.

When one takes the train, more often than not, the track is in a sunken grade.  So the most one sees are concrete walls with occasional level crossings and stations.

An airplane, if you are sitting in a window seat, as you crane your neck to peer out of the 5-inch window, you may see tops of clouds, or the ground from 38,000 feet.  Not a very interesting panorama.  Besides, if you are in a window seat, your biggest concern is timing your bathroom breaks to minimize disruption of the row-mates (not to be confused with inmates).

So Planes, Trains and Automobiles are not the best vehicles for watching the world go by.

That leaves Busses and Boats.

Another Krogen owner once remarked that the KK affords us the opportunity to watch the world pass by from our living room.

So true and certainly one of the main reasons when we first saw the KK42, we knew it was the boat for us.

This morning I was in the bus station in Lisbon seeing my nephew off on his way to France for a week before he flies back to Alaska.  As I watched the people, I realized that the airlines, especially the discount airlines in Europe, have really given a large boost to bus transportation.  When you are being charged $2 per pound for checked baggage and your carry-on bag is the size of a large wallet, what family can afford to travel my plane?

Thus families with kids and the baggage train they entail can travel affordably by bus.

And best of all, they get to actually see the world they are both leaving and coming to.

Can’t ask much more than that.

Author: Richard on Dauntless

I’m an eclectic person, who grew up in New York, lived overseas for many years and have a boat, Dauntless, a 42 foot Kadey Krogen trawler yacht. Dauntless enables me to not only live in many different parts of the world, but to do it in a way that is interesting, affordable, with the added spice of a challenge. Dauntless also allows me to be in touch with nature. As the boat glides through the ocean, you have a sense of being part of a living organism. When dolphins come to frolic, they stay longer if you are out there talking to them, watching them. Birds come by, sometimes looking for a handout; sometimes grateful to find a respite from their long journey. I grew up on the New York waterfront, in the West Village, when everything west of Hudson St. was related to shipping and cargo from around the world. For a kid, it was an exciting place of warehouses, trucks, and working boats of all kinds: tugs and the barges and ships, cargo and passenger, they were pushing around. My father was an electrical engineer, my mother an intellectual, I fell in between. I have always been attracted to Earth’s natural processes, the physical sciences. I was in 8th grade when I decided to be a Meteorologist. After my career in meteorology, my natural interest in earth sciences: geology, astronomy, geography, earth history, made it a natural for me to become a science teacher in New York City, when I moved back to the Big Apple. Teaching led to becoming a high school principal to have the power to truly help kids learn and to be successful not only in school but in life. Dauntless is in western Europe now. In May and June, I will be wrapping up the last two years in northern Europe, heading south to spend the rest of the year in Spain & Portugal. Long term, I’m planning on returning to North American in the fall of 2017 and from there continuing to head west until we’re in Northeast Asia, Japan and South Korea, where we will settle for a bit. But now, my future lies not in NY or even Europe, but back to the water, where at night, when the winds die down, there is no noise, only the silence of the universe. I feel like I am at home, finally. View all posts by Richard on Dauntless