(Verse 1) St. Louis came on a gray afternoon The kind that makes a city look tired She gathered up her things And smiled the way people do When they know it's time We stood there for a moment Neither one with much to say Then she stepped down into the crowd And slowly walked away The driver closed the door The engine came alive And suddenly the ride continued Without her by my side (Chorus) The ride home Felt a little longer then The miles rolled by But something had changed People I'd met along the way Were disappearing one by one And for the first time all summer I felt alone (Verse 2) The seat beside me stayed empty For a couple hundred miles Every now and then I'd look over Out of habit and then smile Back of the bus Sign language The teacher and the desert sky Faces drifting through my memory Like towns rolling by outside The road was still the same road The bus was still the same bus But somehow it all felt different Than it had before (Chorus) The ride home Felt a little longer then The miles rolled by But something had changed People I'd met along the way Were disappearing one by one And for the first time all summer I felt alone (Bridge) Funny how strangers can matter When you know you'll never meet again Funny how a few days Can leave marks that never end I thought I was traveling home But maybe home wasn't the point (Verse 3) Night fell across Missouri Then Illinois came and went The bus kept heading east While my thoughts headed west Back toward Arizona Back toward people I'd met Back toward moments I didn't know Would matter yet (Final Chorus) The ride home Felt a little longer then The miles rolled by But something had changed The boy who left Ohio Was somewhere in the past And the man I'm still becoming Started on that bus (Final Outro) The seat beside me stayed empty The rest of the way home
