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Drive carefully, but drive. It's more efficient in the long run
I'm retired, except for temp jobs from time to time. I don't think I'm
unique. I prefer to drive to work, those days when I work, because I want
to get there and back without wasting a lot of time (Time's the stuff
life's made of, and it's always in short supply, especially at my age!).
Most people choose cars rather than public transportation. I notice most
who enthuse for public transportation think it's great for others. They
think they're the exception who should be allowed to drive alone. If most
of the top brass at SamTrans don't have reserved parking spots and cars
that fill them regularly, I miss my bet.
I did some work a few years ago near the San Bruno train station,
about nine or 10 miles from my home in Pacifica. I drove there in about 30
minutes. One day I decided to try SamTrans. Two and a half hours each way.
My work day was suddenly 13 hours instead of nine. It was as if I'd moved
to Gilroy, or Cloverdale.
One particular July I was involved in an unplanned test of public
transportation, local and national. My wife's aunt was elderly and confined
to a Colorado nursing home. It seemed important to show her she was still
important to us. The visit went fine. Lydia's aunt was still the kind,
generous, thoughtful Christian I remembered from first meeting her more
than 30 years before. We talked about family, genealogy, the beauty of the
Colorado Rockies, a Cherokee ancestor, specific things important mostly to
us and to few others.
We might have driven to the high Rockies, a round trip of perhaps
2500 or 3000 miles. We could have loaded our luggage at home, gassed up,
and headed east on I-80. We would have driven at our pace, stopped for
lunch and rest breaks, pulled off the road to admire the scenery at our
discretion. We could have driven straight through, though it would have
been a strain, or we could have stopped at a motel in Winnemucca or Elko.
However, Lydia still remembered with nostalgia her ride on the
Vista Dome, back in the fifties. So we took the train. However, that's not
as simple as it sounds.
(1) Our son took the time and drove us 20 miles to AMTRAK's office
at the Ferry building. We unloaded our four pieces of luggage, checked the
two larger ones. (2) Then we waited for the bus to Emeryville. The bus
driver dawdled, probably for a good reason, then called Emeryville and told
them he'd be late.
(3) We got to Emeryville's AMTRAK station, waited for the train
impatiently. It finally arrived quite late. We left our house 7:30 a.m.
Sunday morning. We arrived in Glenwood Springs, Colorado Monday afternoon.
On the train we, like our fellow passengers, read, napped, talked, dozed,
moved to the lounge car, drank coffee, watched scenery. Some volunteers
from the California Railroad Museum in Sacramento even rode along from
Sacramento to Reno to tell us about the history we were passing.
Our return trip included a bus trip from Emeryville to SF, where we were
dropped near a BART elevator at our request. Whoops! Out of service! So we
and our four pieces of luggage wound up at the bottom of the escalator, and
I found myself sprawled flat on my back being helped up by the transients
and homeless folks. No broken bones, but no plans to repeat that disaster
ever again. The taxi from DC BART added about twenty bucks to our expenses.
Later we learned we could have parked at the Emeryville AMTRAK station.
Next time I will drive, and not to Emeryville, but all the way to Colorado.
Paul Azevedo's e mail address is Paul@thereactor.net
Check The Reactor's website at www.thereactor.net.
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