<p>Our daughter took the Megabus from the Madison Campus back home to St. Paul yesterday.</p>
<p>The journey started inauspiciously when the bus drove right past the assembled throng waiting to hop on the bus. The departure point had been changed due to construction. The students were waiting where they had been instructed. The driver apparently hadn't been informed. Some twenty or thirty minutes or so later, the bus did find the right spot. In the meantime, the passengers were left standing in a blizzard wondering if they had missed the bus entirely.</p>
<p>Next, the bus went to a scheduled rest stop in Mauston. Here, the driver hopped back on the freeway but took the wrong ramp. They were headed back east to Madison! No worries, the error was discovered and the driver took the next opportunity to head back towards the Twin Cities.</p>
<p>Our daughter texted us to tell us the bus would be late, so we delayed our departure to meet her in the parking lot that passes for a bus terminal in the barebones world of Megabusland. </p>
<p>The bus has two stops in the Twin Cities--St. Paul first, as it is further east, and then Minneapolis. We got another text. Whoops! The driver had missed the St. Paul exit. She was going to Minneapolis first. </p>
<p>In Minneapolis, the driver drove to the Metrodome, which is where the bus used to stop. But for the last month, the bus is supposed to stop only at the Target Center. The passengers informed the driver of her error and helped her find the right spot. The driver screwed up numerous times haplessly negotiating the short Metrodome to Target distance.</p>
<p>I talked to my daughter on the cell. I wondered if the driver was impaired. Should I call the cops and have them do a sobriety check? My daughter said the driver was just new. </p>
<p>I decided to call the main Megabus number and ask them to contact the driver to see if she was OK. The person who answered the phone said they had no way to contact their drivers. (?!) She did not share my concern that they had a bus randomly ambling about the frozen midwest. She did offer to tell me the email address if I wanted to register a complaint. </p>
<p>The bus did make it to St. Paul. 1.75 hours late on what should have been a five hour trip.</p>