Think, for a moment, about the song: ‘The Wheels on the Bus.’ There may be no truer musical homage to journey than this. Hidden under the playful tune is a bleak and true-to-life description of what the bus, what being on the bus, is like. Strip away the notes and pretend a man, a man who has been on the bus for many hours, is speaking the words under his breath. Imagine his eyes and imagine the way his lips might move over every tired word.
Yes, the song is just a series of descriptions. Descriptions of what is happening on the bus. Examine the lyrics and you will see for yourself, the story is this:
The wheels go round and round and it begins to rain. The bus fills to the brim and the driver commands people to make more room, room that simply isn’t there. The road becomes rough, the way congested. People are leaving en masse; they are fleeing. The driver lays on the horn and a child begins to cry. The parents try, in vain, to comfort it.
What is happening here, exactly? Why was it necessary to write a song and why, if the tune is cheery, does the author describe the worst aspects of a bus ride?
I am in a bad mood.
‘Old maps and adverts in the central office detail the early days of the ‘Plains to Coast Quick Bus Co.’ how it started with many buses and many routes until, as though tending to a bonsai tree, the founders quickly trimmed it down to its truer form. It is a 17 and a half hour beast of a ride that does not go out of its way to make you comfortable.
But it is the only public vehicle allowed through the ‘Dull Moon Pass.’
Amateur Gray Road Theorists are quick to use the ‘Dull Moon Pass’ as evidence to their claim but the time it takes to traverse the DMP (satellite images reveal) corresponds closely with its theoretical length. In short, they are grasping for seconds at best. That, of course, is the trouble with Gray Road Theory. Even if it were true, the touted ‘known examples’ would hardly be useful or interesting given the small size of their estimated anomalies, no matter how precisely those distortions are calculated or how forcefully those calculations are shoved under your nose.
All that said, the DMP does fit the bill in other ways. Around fifteen minutes in it’s safe to expect color blurring and dizziness, precursors to a creeping grayout. Those who remain able to see will occasionally report a small town, often at the 45 minute mark. This would place it at the base of the ridge, shortly before the bus enters the tunnel.
There is nothing to be said about the tunnel itself accept for a near universal feeling of dread that comes upon the riders like a motion-sickness, climaxing just as the bus bursts back into full-sighted daylight. There is no clear danger and no clear change but the darkness of the tunnel clings like guilt and it insists that something has changed, that you have done something wrong in your passing. You will not feel welcome on the ‘Dull Moon Pass’ a second time. You may not feel welcome anywhere for a long time after.’
-traveler
