The bus driver turned down the interior lights and darkness enveloped the Salt Lake Express bus. The time was 10:54 p.m. as our over-sized van pulled out of the Helena Transit Center with seven passengers bound for Butte.
This small drama plays out every night year-round. As most of Montana sleeps, a 15-seat mini-bus rolls through Jefferson County, stopping briefly in Boulder and Basin before reaching its destination of downtown Butte at the ungodly hour of 12:15 a.m. Many arriving passengers quickly hop on a 12:30 a.m. connection to Billings.
Later, in the wee hours just after 5 a.m., the Great Falls-origin bus turns around and heads back to its home terminal. On a recent Tuesday night, I made the round trip – just to say I’d done it, and learn who on Earth travels then, and why.
The answer is anchored in a certain randomness: passengers clamber aboard this bus for a range of reasons. Soon after boarding, I started talking to the man sitting next to me, Thomas Hopper, a retired product manager for a Tulsa-based winching company. On his first visit to Montana, he was hiking the Continental Divide Trail. He’d parked his car in Butte, gotten a ride to Anaconda and walked to Helena before hopping on this bus for the return trip.
Since retiring, Hopper told me, he had hiked over 4,000 miles from Key West to Quebec, the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada, and the length of New Zealand. He mentioned a book he’d read years ago, Ten Million Steps by Nimblewill Nomad. “He retired at 60, I think it was, and hiked from Key West to Cap Gaspé, Quebec,” Hopper explained. “I thought, ‘That sounds cool, I wanna do that.’ So I retired and that was the first big hike I did.”
We talked until the bus pulled into Boulder’s Town Pump. We were supposed to pick up another passenger, but Destin, the driver, found nobody waiting and stepped inside to look. Only then did I realize: he was searching for me. I had accidentally booked a ticket from Boulder instead of Helena, leaving Destin looking around in vain for the missing ticketholder.
I informed him of my error and we got back on the road. I remained silent for the rest of the trip, partly due to the vehicle’s design. It wasn’t a full-sized bus, but a van with four rows of seats and no aisle, just a large exit door on the passengers’ right. This layout hindered conversation with other passengers, many of whom already had their eyes closed or headphones on.
I stared off into the road lit up by the van’s headlights, listening to the hum of wheels on highway. As expected, there were few cars on the road at this hour. I felt comfortable and calm as I picked out the silhouettes of the mountain ranges around me. Soon enough I saw the lights of Butte. From a distance they filled the town, making it seem like a big city.
We pulled into the dingy Intermountain bus depot. I got off and noticed a man sleeping in the grass. “You good?” the driver asked him before giving the man a bottle of water.
I started talking to another passenger named Gavin, who said he was making his way from his home in Great Falls to Salt Lake City. His stepson, who lived in Butte with his mother, had blown up his hand with a firework on the Fourth of July and had to be life-flighted to Salt Lake.
Apparently, most of his hand had life in it, but the thumb had turned completely black and he would most likely lose it. “No more video games,” Gavin said dryly. He proceeded to show me a picture of his stepson’s blown-up hand. It was a gruesome sight.
I said goodbye to Gavin and wished him luck before heading into the depot. The building housed those dozen or so people, like me, who were waiting overnight for their next bus. Amenities were scarce, but there were a few benches and chairs, a bathroom, and bean bags for rent. I decided to walk to a nearby gas station convenience store, the only place open in a mile radius. I noticed a man walking – or more accurately, stumbling – near the station with a bottle in his hand.
I picked up a ham sandwich and coffee, then chatted with Destin, who was filling up the bus’ gas tank. He told me about a passenger he’d driven a few times who is seemingly always drunk and claims to be in the Mafia. He once started rapping for the driver, claiming he worked with Snoop Dogg. He stopped rapping after a short while and started crying, saying he was embarrassed by his own behavior. Then he forgot his grief and broke into a rap once again.
Destin said he’s usually running on low sleep. He has a five-hour break before he has to drive back to Great Falls. He usually sleeps during that time but not much the rest of the day. Thinking of it now, that’s a bit concerning. It is well known that driving while sleep-deprived is much like drunk driving. The driver told me one of his colleagues recently hit a deer on the road, and he is always vigilant of wildlife crossing the highway.
I returned to the depot to eat my sandwich and drink my coffee. Soon after, the stumbling man – who I could now see sported messy white hair and a full beard — came into the building mumbling to himself, quietly at first but gradually increasing his volume into a yell. He asked, in heavily slurred words, if anyone had a pair of socks he could borrow.
A kind man sitting next to him offered a pair, but his yelling continued. This time he seemed to be moaning in pain as he put on the socks, swearing as he groaned. Most people in the depot, including me, promptly moved outside, trying our best to ignore the distraught older man.
Another driver came in and talked to the white-haired hysteric. Eventually, the man fell asleep on the depot floor, and the rest of the night passed fairly peacefully.
I went back to the gas station, lost $7 on a slot machine, then tried to fall asleep under a tree by the depot. I laid around for a few more hours, sometimes observing the late-night passengers. Many carried large suitcases or boxes, like they were visiting somewhere or even moving.
Finally, it was 5:20 a.m. — time to board the bus back to Helena. I briefly chatted with a woman returning to Conrad after visiting relatives in Tacoma. Her trip had been about 14 hours so far, with another 13 hours ahead of her. She, like Gavin, would have much preferred to use a car, but had to take the bus out of necessity. “Would never do it again if I could avoid it,” she told me.
I felt much the same way by the end of my round trip, exhausted and yearning for my bed. I couldn’t imagine my fatigue if I had to ride to another state. Still, it was a memorable journey. The people I met — the transcontinental hiker, the guy visiting his injured stepson, the drunkard lost in another world, the sleep-deprived bus driver — will stay with me.
These are the folks you meet on a bus passing through Boulder in the dead of night.
