Well the Crescent is sold out on the 22nd. I know that because I was going to book it on Sunday to avoid high airfares. I can't speak for the Lynchburger, because I needed to go all the way to Atlanta.
"Near" is a relative term. In Virginia, if you're within an hour, you're local. So in this case, Charlottesville and Richmond are, in fact, nearby. As for how to get from Richmond to Charlottesville, the theory is that Megan's sister might be willing to pick her up, which would not be anything out of the ordinary for the Staples Mill station. Lots of Charlottesville-bound travelers get off in Richmond.
In the_traveler's defense, Richmond to CVS is very, very far for a Rhode Islander. People in my neighborhood say that going to the Warwick mall is too far. It's like 5 or 10 miles away. But it requires driving on the highway. We can't even drive an hour and still be in the same state......
Five to six hours on a bus is nothing, especially on the newly refurbed DL3s. I've had much more on an unrefurbed bus and had no problems with comfort. You also get that rest stop at Washington, so I don't know why anyone would complain.
Wow. Where I live the next state over is around 300 miles to the East, 380 miles to the North, and 575 miles to the West. Seventy odd miles is "right next door" for us.
Mrs. Ispolkom is from Rhode Island, and I've found that we have very different views of distance. The county I was born in is larger than Rhode Island, and she was staggered that my cousins' ranch in Montana is more than 20 miles from the nearest paved road.
Like notions of distance, tastes and notions of comfort differ. Five to six hours on a bus is easily two to three hours longer than I'd willingly endure. On the other hand, Wagner's Gotterdammerung is more than six hours long, and I have never found it too long, even in a less-than-comfortable seat. You might find that a bit long for an opera.
:giggle: The county I live in here in Eastern Washington is more than twice the size of Rhode Island; one can drive from the far northwest tip of the county to the far southeast tip of the county and cover nearly 100 miles. There are portions of the school district that I attended school at that are 60 miles apart from one another. And this for a high school whose enrollment is less than 90 students in four grades. As for the bus, if I chose to go to Seattle, for instance, I could catch the Thruway bus about 50 feet from my front door, ride to Spokane, an hour or so away, change buses, and be in Seattle about 8 or so hours. I don't want to! I'd rather drive the hour to Spokane and catch the Empire Builder. And I'd find sitting through an opera would be too long at about the six minute mark, much less six hours. On the other hand, I've been known on several occasions to drive to Spokane to catch the high school state basketball tournament for the two smallest classifications according to enrollment which, on the first couple of days, entails basketball games starting at 9 am and lasting as late as 11PM (or even later). That entails watching 8 games throughout the day (or, because the tournament is held in a big arena in Spokane, with room enough for two courts laid end to end, boys one one court and girls on the other, one can, if they so choose, grab a seat in a strategic location so as to watch two games at a time). That's 14+ hours of basketball, with of course meal breaks, and such.
