The schedule could make a rock star cringe.

Spend 23 days aboard a bus. Ride for 8,000 miles and sleep in 17 cities.

That’s what a busload of local people, mostly retirees, did last week.

Their “Across the USA” tour ended Sept. 27, pulling into the Auburn Inn parking lot after stops in Washington, St. Louis, Oklahoma City, the Grand Canyon and Mitchell, S.D., home of the world’s only corn palace.

Already, 10 of the trek’s 37 passengers have signed up for info on next year’s journey, which is likely to be just as long.

“Before we left, I didn’t know if I would be up to it,” said Judy Carver, the tour director. “We just kept each other going.”

It is a marathon, even for the experienced traveler.

“Most of the people had worked their way up to it,” said Edward Trebilcock, a 63-year-old retired teacher from Otisfield. He went with his wife, Carol, also a retired teacher. “I think everybody had been on shorter trips.”

The couple had traveled to Florida by bus. There were no aimless miles in unknown places and no hunting for hotel rooms.

On this trip, most days began at 8 a.m., when the bus would leave the past night’s hotel. There would be a morning stop and another for lunch. If it was purely a travel day, as some were, there would be more riding, another break and the arrival at that night’s hotel by 6 p.m.

“I was never bored,” said Sally Hutchinson, who rode the bus with her husband, Leon.

On the bus, they played bingo and trivia games. They watched movies. Carol Trebilcock, who taught English at Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School, read four books during the trip.

“After the first week, you know everybody’s first name,” Carver said.

Some of the more popular stops were Branson, Mo., where they saw shows by Glen Campbell and comedian Yakov Smirnoff, the Painted Desert and Yellowstone National Park.

In Las Vegas, Hutchinson spent a few dollars playing nickel slot machines. She found a penny machine, but she couldn’t figure out how to work it.

People paid between $2,300 and $3,400 each for the trip, which included hotel rooms and several breakfasts and dinners.

Trebilcock figures it was worth it. If he had taken his own car and had to pay for each of the hotel rooms on his own, it would have cost more, he said.

This way, he managed to see something he’d wanted to see all his life. As a geography and U.S. history teacher, he had taught generations of area teens about America’s expansion into the West, but he had never been there.

“You become much more aware of how big it is,” he said. “It’s a long ride.”

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