A Mass Transit Fail and a Specific Request for Would-Be Supporters

I am flying into Springfield, Missouri on July 28 and flying back home on July 30 (I'm going up there to visit my mother for her 86th birthday).

That actually gives me longer in town than it sounds like, because I'll be arriving in Springfield a little after 8am that Sunday morning.

I have a brother in town but he doesn't drive much lately, and he does go to church on Sundays, so I wouldn't want to get him up at oh-dark-thirty to collect me from the airport.

So I thought to myself, as long as I am at the nursing home Mom moved in to late last year by 10am or so, it's all good. She'll have had time to get up, have breakfast, etc. but won't have been waiting around all day for me to arrive.

Hey, instead of blowing $25-30 on Uber (or Lyft) to get there in 25-30 minutes, I can just hop on a city bus for $1.25, maybe plus 10 cents for a transfer and get there in an hour and 15 minutes or so!

And then I thought to myself, hey, I could even grab a couple of $3.75 "all-day" bus passes! I don't plan on going a LOT of places while I'm in town, but at least one of those places (a comedy club where I'd like to do an open mic set on that Monday evening) isn't within easy walking distance. It's worth $3.75 to have a reasonable degree of evening mobility those two nights. I'd like to visit the spot where a good friend died (as it happens, right outside the bus system's central hub) and maybe see if a nightclub I used to work at (a block or so from said spot) is still open, perhaps making it a point to walk across the spots where Wild Bill Hickock and Davis Tutt stood during their 1865 shootout en route.

Cool.

Don't get me wrong. I hate government mass transit in general, and abolishing this particular bus system was part of my campaign platform when I ran for Springfield city council 22 years ago. But hey, those buses are running, and the money is being spent to run them, whether I ride them for $1.25 or take Uber (or Lyft) instead. I don't feel any more guilty about saving some money that way than I do about driving on government roads instead of getting everywhere by jet pack.

BUT THEN!

I don't know how many cities in America

1. have public mass transit systems that
2. don't serve their own airports

but Springfield Missouri seems to be one of them. I've contacted the transit authority there to find out, but so far as I can tell, the nearest bus stop is, well, a considerable Uber (or Lyft) ride away from the airport.

Which means I'm expecting to spend $50-$75 on Uber (or Lyft) instead of at most $5-10 on bus fare.

If anyone cares to help out with Uber (or Lyft) gift cards, I'd much appreciate it.

As it happens, only Uber has gift cards available via Amazon (they're on my wish list) and Bitcoin.com (my email address is kubby dot communications at gmail dot com). 

Lyft sells gift cards on their site, if you want to go that way instead. I don't know if they're delivered by email address or by phone (if it's that, hit the contact form for my number, which I hate giving out because I hate talking on the phone).

Thanks in advance to anyone who wants to subsidize my non-government transportation ;-)