Retro Ride

     Our eldest son and his family live in the Northern Virginia area while in school.  Because of the availability of public transportation, traffic, and the cost of owning a car, they choose not to have one.  They are a short walk to their son's school, a moderately short (maybe 1/2 mile) walk to a Metro station and there are Metro buses that pass their complex regularly.
     We are 1 stop from DC on the Megabus to Knoxville line, so to visit us they generally ride the Megabus to us.  This works well except at Christmas, when they would have to make the nearly 5 hour ride from DC to us, then about a 6 hour ride from Roanoke to Virginia Beach on Trailways/Greyhound to visit her parents, then either another bus or train ride to get back home with a 7 year old, luggage and gifts.  We enjoy having them visit us, so in order to facilitate their travel, we let them use my car to travel from here to Virginia Beach and then back to DC.  This especially worked well this year as we were using the other SUV to go to Virginia Beach, then Florida and home.
     The only difficulty is that we end up in SW Virginia and my car in Northern Virginia at the end of the holidays.  The choices for having the car returned are to have our son drive it back, then ride the bus back home, to drive hubby's car up and drive 2 cars back, which also requires a hotel room stay with the dogs or boarding the dogs and a hotel room stay for us, or for me to ride the bus to NOVA, spend the night at their house on a cot and drive my car back.
     This year, we decided the last option was economically the best option for all involved, so yesterday afternoon, I boarded a bus voluntarily for the first time in more than 25 years for the nearly 5 hour trip to DC.  The Megabus is very reasonably priced, clean, but at least my seat was severely lacking in legroom.  I arrived at Union Station at about 8 pm last evening and was met by my son, to help me negotiate the Metro from downtown DC to Vienna where they live.  After a quick late dinner at Union Station, we boarded the redline transferred to the orange line and arrived at their house by 9:30, in time for a cup of tea and a good night's sleep before driving the return trip in my car this morning.  The whole trip taking less than 23 hours.
     I will probably avail myself of the Megabus for future trips to help them with childcare issues or when we loan them my car.