Dauntless
100 TW
Just a quick break in today's nightmare. It seems as I was getting out of my car this morning I dropped the keys. The door closed, i was locked out. I think maybe 7 miles from home. Last week it would have been murderous, not that it's cooled off much this week. But there's a mall less than a mile away, I've taken the bus before, it'll drop me less than a mile from my house.
As I'm walking over there this guy decides he wants to run the light and he looks away, holding up his coffee cup. The idea is I'm supposed to figure out he'll just run me over and I gotta scramble out of the crosswalk. Catches him by surprise when I punch his door window as he goes post. be barely looked, he just punched it and lit up his tires tearing out of there. Poor thing will spend the next few weeks panicking that someone got his license number after he ran down the pedestrian. Hit and run is a felony in California. I just hope he dropped his coffee in his lap.
All that for nothing, turns out the bus from the mall to my house doesn't run anymore. Turns out the only other bus along that major highway, which only came every 90 minutes, no longer runs either. So I had a choice of going one way to wait up to a half hour for the first bus to go just 3 miles before walking close to a mile to the second and waiting up to a half hour and getting dropped a mile from my house; or walking over a mile to a road the mall bus used to go down and catching the other bus that goes down it. That one would drop me at the same stop as the mall bus would, so seems like the way to go. Dang, seemed to be going so well when I was crossing the road on the block of the stop and I saw the bus maybe a quarter mile away. Except it was a mirage in the heat, no bus turned up at the stop. The sign said there'd be up to a 90 minute wait, depending on how far away it was.
Well, dang, I'll just be standing around in the sun anyway, I could walk the rest of the way home in less than 90 minutes. It's an increasingly downhill slope for close to 5 miles. Of course by the time I reach the next stop I'm wanting to ask the woman waiting how long she's been there, maybe I can get out of this walk. Except her eyes, the mumbling. I'm not sure she knows how long she's been waiting, right? Then as I get near her she jumps up and runs off into the bushes. Yeah, maybe I'll keep walking. So I've covered some two miles and the real downhill is about to start. Here comes this nice looking girl from a store to the stop, basically she doesn't look like she's been in the heat, but I do. She's looking at me trying to act like nothing is wrong, I'm looking down the road trying to WILL that bus to show up at this stop. Yeah, that worked. Down a steep hill is at least better than up a steep hill, right? On foot, not all that much better.
Ah, I made it, the last main road where I'd get off the bus. I'm closer to home than the stop I'd use as I cross it. Here's the bus turning left there with me. Ah well, I saved $2.00, right? Plus a minute extra walking from that stop.
Okay. I'm sitting here cooling off and soaking up some water. As much as I want to change my shirt I'm just going to have to do this all over again. WHY would they discontinue the bus to the mall? Given the lack of people at the stops coming home I guess I understand the extended wait. But now I wonder: If I walk a mile in the wrong direction I can discover if the first bus of the other route is still running, or if the wait is 90 minutes now. Then I can take it and find out if the OTHER bus is also 90 minutes, or running at all. Or I can go wait 90 minutes for this bus close to home, feeling impatient and wanting to walk up that hill. If that bus broke down or something I doubt they'd send another. (Sigh.) Oh, by the way, remember that my keys are in plain sight on the seat. Across the street a few years ago my car was broken into, the club snapped off my steering wheel, the ignition key popped, all in the time it took me to walk away then realize I'd left something in the car and turned back, so they fled before getting the car started. I guess they'd followed me there. Never did get the key fixed right again. Dang, that was my previous Mustang. Now this one is 700 feet away with the keys in it. I better get going.
So this whole electric bike thing started as a way to have something in my car if I needed it. Well, it would have been locked in this time. I considered the Curries inadequate for my uses, I had to drag them up that 3 mile hill or go around on longer routes they were unsuitable for. This with my extender pack plugged into it so it could SLOWLY make the longer trip. But more comfortable to ride means it's not going to fit into my little Mustang, I don't have anything to get me back there.
I think I need an overpowered electric skateboard. When the battery goes dead I can kick it along. Just so it gets me up that hill first. Or maybe we could establish a way for people to take buses in Orange County. . . .
As I'm walking over there this guy decides he wants to run the light and he looks away, holding up his coffee cup. The idea is I'm supposed to figure out he'll just run me over and I gotta scramble out of the crosswalk. Catches him by surprise when I punch his door window as he goes post. be barely looked, he just punched it and lit up his tires tearing out of there. Poor thing will spend the next few weeks panicking that someone got his license number after he ran down the pedestrian. Hit and run is a felony in California. I just hope he dropped his coffee in his lap.
All that for nothing, turns out the bus from the mall to my house doesn't run anymore. Turns out the only other bus along that major highway, which only came every 90 minutes, no longer runs either. So I had a choice of going one way to wait up to a half hour for the first bus to go just 3 miles before walking close to a mile to the second and waiting up to a half hour and getting dropped a mile from my house; or walking over a mile to a road the mall bus used to go down and catching the other bus that goes down it. That one would drop me at the same stop as the mall bus would, so seems like the way to go. Dang, seemed to be going so well when I was crossing the road on the block of the stop and I saw the bus maybe a quarter mile away. Except it was a mirage in the heat, no bus turned up at the stop. The sign said there'd be up to a 90 minute wait, depending on how far away it was.
Well, dang, I'll just be standing around in the sun anyway, I could walk the rest of the way home in less than 90 minutes. It's an increasingly downhill slope for close to 5 miles. Of course by the time I reach the next stop I'm wanting to ask the woman waiting how long she's been there, maybe I can get out of this walk. Except her eyes, the mumbling. I'm not sure she knows how long she's been waiting, right? Then as I get near her she jumps up and runs off into the bushes. Yeah, maybe I'll keep walking. So I've covered some two miles and the real downhill is about to start. Here comes this nice looking girl from a store to the stop, basically she doesn't look like she's been in the heat, but I do. She's looking at me trying to act like nothing is wrong, I'm looking down the road trying to WILL that bus to show up at this stop. Yeah, that worked. Down a steep hill is at least better than up a steep hill, right? On foot, not all that much better.
Ah, I made it, the last main road where I'd get off the bus. I'm closer to home than the stop I'd use as I cross it. Here's the bus turning left there with me. Ah well, I saved $2.00, right? Plus a minute extra walking from that stop.
Okay. I'm sitting here cooling off and soaking up some water. As much as I want to change my shirt I'm just going to have to do this all over again. WHY would they discontinue the bus to the mall? Given the lack of people at the stops coming home I guess I understand the extended wait. But now I wonder: If I walk a mile in the wrong direction I can discover if the first bus of the other route is still running, or if the wait is 90 minutes now. Then I can take it and find out if the OTHER bus is also 90 minutes, or running at all. Or I can go wait 90 minutes for this bus close to home, feeling impatient and wanting to walk up that hill. If that bus broke down or something I doubt they'd send another. (Sigh.) Oh, by the way, remember that my keys are in plain sight on the seat. Across the street a few years ago my car was broken into, the club snapped off my steering wheel, the ignition key popped, all in the time it took me to walk away then realize I'd left something in the car and turned back, so they fled before getting the car started. I guess they'd followed me there. Never did get the key fixed right again. Dang, that was my previous Mustang. Now this one is 700 feet away with the keys in it. I better get going.
So this whole electric bike thing started as a way to have something in my car if I needed it. Well, it would have been locked in this time. I considered the Curries inadequate for my uses, I had to drag them up that 3 mile hill or go around on longer routes they were unsuitable for. This with my extender pack plugged into it so it could SLOWLY make the longer trip. But more comfortable to ride means it's not going to fit into my little Mustang, I don't have anything to get me back there.
I think I need an overpowered electric skateboard. When the battery goes dead I can kick it along. Just so it gets me up that hill first. Or maybe we could establish a way for people to take buses in Orange County. . . .