In which a decision is reversed

I was so exhausted and foot-sore last night that I went to bed thinking I am going to have to fail this car-less experiment. I just can't do it. Between the bulky/heavy items issue and the long distance between me and the dentist's office (tomorrow's my 6 month check-up), I just can't, any more.

Got a lousy 5 hours of sleep and stumbled up much earlier than usual this morning just to get out of bed which was not fulfilling its purpose of cradling me to blissful slumber. I had already dedicated this day to very little but recuperating from my uncharacteristically busy week last week. So I thought about how I was going to admit in this blog that I just don't have what it takes to be a car-less citizen any more. And to ponder how exactly I was going to muster the money to have on hand when the one I've got bites the dust.

Well, I thought, failure can be a valuable post, too. I have to be honest or this thing is worthless.

Then I thought, but if I'm going to be scientific I have to at LEAST do the comparisons between my different options for going to the dentist tomorrow. I'm thinking it's at least 3 miles there. No way could I walk 6 miles in one day at this point. But to figure out how much a taxi ride would cost, I have to have a mileage estimate. So the first thing to do for a mode comparison is find out exactly how MANY millions of miles away my dentist's office is. I use www.gmap-pedometer.com. I laid out the path and looked at the number.

1.7 mile.

Oh.

Heh heh.

I can do that. That's about how far the grocery store is from me, and I did that last week. There's a really mean 1-block hill on the way to the dentist's, and one or more milder ones, as opposed to the grocery store trek which is downhill all the way from home. But I can take it moderately and get there, at 1.7 mile.  I'm cursing myself for not having noted when I left the house on my grocery store foray, so I don't know exactly how long it took me. But I bet I could reach the dentist's in 45 minutes max. In fact, I'd say 30 because I can go the 1.8 mile to the Benson P.O. in less than half an hour, but that's almost completely flat. So, say 45 minutes to the dentist. And no outlay of money.

How about taxi? Well, the one home from the grocery store cost me $8.00 including a tip. So a round trip dentist appt. would be ~ $16.00. And would take just a few minutes each way.

And the bus. I laid out the bus schedules and figured out I can get there by riding all the way out to the Westroads and back in to midtown (Metro has no routes that go anything LIKE directly from point to point north & south in midtown) and it would take a little over an hour, one way. Round trip fare would cost me four pass rides if they won't let me get transfers (I seem to remember they don't allow transfers when you'd be transferring to a bus that goes the opposite direction from the one you get the pass on? That might be incorrect, I'll check). And if they *do* allow transfers for this journey, then just 2 pass rides plus 50 cents.

So: Fast, but expensive:       taxi.
       Slow but cheap:             bus.
       Equally slow but free:   walk.

What's the weather doing tomorrow? Looks like gray but not rainy, and mid-to upper-50s. Sweater & scarf. I can totally do this.

I love that picture.