Physician’s addiction to long-distance bus trips leads to quartet of travel tales
Victoria – Straddling the ’Hound: The Curious Charms of Long-Distance Bus Travel, just released by Agio Publishing, is an engaging account of four solo bus trips within the U.S. taken by ageing physician and road-addict Trevor Watson.
“I’m a complete, utter and enthusiastic victim of hodophilia, which means lover of the road,” says the Vancouver Island (BC) doctor. “Though that might not completely explain why a sexagenarian with a bad back would subject himself to lengthy stints on a Greyhound!”
Explains Watson, “There is frankly no better way to immerse oneself into the culture of a region than to be seatmates, sharing stories, discomforts and diner fare with my fellow passengers.”
Watson, who wrote a weekly medical advice column for five years for The [Vancouver] Province, typically stays in cheap hotels near the bus station to stay in the experience. He even bought a quilt from a Motel 6.
Whether it’s chatting with outlaws and mystics on the bus, hobnobbing with Mormons in Utah, hanging out at the end of the line in Key West, or plunging into Mark Twain’s Mississippi – readers will find the author’s love of people, oddity and language a genuine pleasure. Hop on the bus – you’re in for a treat.
Straddling the ’Hound by Trevor Watson is published by Agio Publishing House, Victoria (Canada), 214 pp., trade paperback edition, $18.00CAD, ISBN 978-1-927755-47-1; ebook edition, $4.99, 978-1-927755-48-8.
About the author – Trevor Watson
Dr. Trevor Watson’s insatiable curiosity and itchy feet have led him to travel and work in many parts of the world (Zimbabwe, Haiti, Guatemala, India – he just returned from Uganda, Rwanda and South Sudan). He has practised medicine for over 40 years, and has a keen interest in psychology, philosophy and spirituality. He and his wife, Cynthia, have been married for 46 marvellous years. He has two children and four grandchildren. Allowing for sensible buffer-zones, they all live near one another on Vancouver Island.
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