Easy Christmas Shopping

This past weekend, a friend wanted me to meet her at a mall so that she could check on a Christmas item to buy. The mall is not a Megamall, but it does have good anchor stores to pull in the business, and it's connected to a subway stop, which is helpful. Since it's not a Megamall, car parking isn't real bad...but then, this was the weekend before Christmas.

The mall is a little less than 2 miles from where I live, the bike ride over there is easy, though there's a good-size hill involved. The last time I rode over to the mall, I locked my bike in front of the Target store, where there was a bike rack provided. The store my friend wanted to meet me was at the other end of the mall, where I didn't see a bike rack. So I double-locked my bike to a tree across from the mall entrance. I later saw another mall entrance around the corner, and it DID have a bike rack there, so I made a note of it for bike parking in the future. :)

Going to a mall the weekend before Christmas can be a bit stressful, especially if you're trying to park a car. I have experienced "parking lot road rage" years ago (when I did have a car), and it wasn't pleasant. The guy who "stole" my parking spot did it with such gusto and nerve, I couldn't believe it. As he got out of his car, he let me have it verbally. And this was FIRST thing in the morning! How can someone be SO ANGRY first thing in the morning??! There were plenty of other parking spots right nearby, so I parked elsewhere.

You NEVER have such angry outbursts from other bicyclists when you are parking your bike. You never have to "fight" for a parking spot. It is a stress-free experience. One less stress in life is good. :)

A Roof Over Our Heads

 On Thanksgiving, I went to catch my Megabus ride up to Baltimore to meet my sister. Megabus recently moved their D.C. stop from K Street, to the Union Station parking garage. One great thing about this is that now, finally, we have shelter from the elements. :) As you've read from some of my previous posts, the other D.C. Megabus stops have been in open parking lots - so you were exposed to the summer sun, wind, cold, etc. So I was happy that we now have shelter. :) Plus, since it's at Union Station, passengers can take Metro right to Union Station and take the escalators up a couple levels to the parking garage. At the previous stop on K Street, you had to walk a number of blocks to get to the stop. I remember one time a lady in front of me was on her cell phone, talking to her friend who was racing to get to the Megabus stop. Her friend was exiting Metro, but still had the many blocks to cover. Her friend was anxious for her to make the bus and kept urging her to hurry, hurry! She asked the bus attendant if they would hold the bus, since her friend was close by. He said that if they saw her in the parking lot, they would. I don't think her friend made it in time, so she had to catch the next Megabus. So, having the D.C. stop connected with Metro will be helpful. I was running a little low on time myself and decided to bike to Metro and take it to Union Station. Unfortunately, I have to transfer from the Green line to the Red line, so you lose time in waiting. I think it took me as long to ride Metro as it would have been to bike. The return Metro ride home though, the timing of the trains were better and it didn't take me as long.

Four Years & Counting! :)

Hard to believe this month marks my 4th year of being car-free! :) I was just checking today to see if there are Zipcars located at the Metro station near my new home residence, and I was happy to see there are...one car is a Prius, which costs only $8.50/hr. Also I just found out that there's a Zipcar even closer - just a handful of blocks from my house - - even better! :) So that's good to keep in mind for the future.

Speaking of the future, I came across this interesting video of a new program (called "Mo-bility.com") that was launched in Munich, Germany: http://vimeo.com/30483592. The concept is that when members uses one form of public transportation, they collect "mo miles" which entitles them to a discount on other transportation modes. I think it's a GREAT way to connect the separate modes of transportation. It'd be a great addition to cities like Washington, D.C., where people use bikes, buses, subways, Amtrak, etc. to get around. Hmmm....maybe ONE day we could have the program implemented here...I don't see why it couldn't work. I'm not sure how much the program costs though, to get started, nor how much the membership would be?

I've sent an email to the people at Mo-bility.com, to inquire if this program could be implemented in the D.C. area. Stay tuned...

Attending Class

A week or so ago, I signed up to attend a home-buying counseling class, held in Rockville, MD. I've always been a renter, but with low interest rates and the cost of houses at a low, I thought I'd check out the possibility of buying a home. Maryland has a program where, if you take an 8-hour class, you receive a certificate that entitles you to $5,000 off your closing costs. The class cost $95, but I thought it was worth the money.

If it had been a rainy morning, I might have gotten a Zipcar so that I wouldn't arrive all wet. But it was a clear day, so I rode my Brompton folding bike to the Metro and took it to Rockville. The class location was an office building a couple of miles from the station. I rolled my bike into the building, into the elevator, and leaned it up against a wall outside of the glass-encased conference room. I thought about it later, perhaps how odd it looked that I was showing up with a bicycle in hand. But you know, I'm SO used to having a bike by my side, that I really didn't think about it and how it looked. :)

During the break, the classroom instructor commented about my Brompton. She was an Asian lady, a little shorter than me, and said she liked my bike because it looked like it was easy to get on and off, since the frame of the bike is low and easy to step over. I showed her how fast and easy it folded and she was amazed. She asked about the cost of the bike and where she could buy one.

Part of the class involved a monthly budget that we had filled out prior to the class. It was quite detailed as to the breakdown of costs. A portion of the budget referred to car-related expenses. I wonder how many of her students filled in $0 for their car-related expenses? I do, however, spend up to $60 a month currently, on taking the subway and bus, which is a lot less than car-related expenses.

I will be moving next month to Mount Rainier, Maryland, to share a house, since my apartment rent was going up YET again. :( The extra cash I save in sharing a house will go towards a home of my own one day in the near future, if I'm lucky to find something in my price range and that suits my wants/needs. I haven't lived in Maryland since I was a kid, so it feels kind of weird to think about living there again. I've lived a lot of my life in Virginia. So, stay tuned....

The house I will be sharing has a driveway, which is nice. Not that I need it... :) but it's nice for when someone drops by for a visit. The parking for guests at apartment complex I've lived at, is practically non-existent, which is very inconvenient. There is a small half circle in front of the building where you can park briefly to load/unload, but the complex has a very aggressive towing policy, especially in the evenings. So, a driveway will be helpful.

One thing interesting about my new housemate - she is also car-free. She gets around via subway and bus and does just fine. So she TOTALLY gets my car-free lifestyle, which is nice. :)

Autolib in Paris

In the news today, Paris is introducing car-sharing, with electric cars, called the Autolib (similar to the bike-sharing called Velib). They will be building electric-charging stations, and you swipe your card and get a car, and then drop it off at any other charging station. Pretty neat and I wonder how long it'll be before the U.S. gets onboard with the idea? The woman who is in charge of transportation issues at Paris City Hall is quoted as saying "Owning a car is passe." :) Good to hear! :)

I recently was on a bike tour in Washington/Oregon, and was the volunteer sag van driver. I told the group that I went car-free almost 4 years ago and that I get around by bike & public transportation. They admired that, and jokingly commented about the group having a van driver who didn't even have a car back home, and how safe was that?! :) Of course, you don't FORGET how to drive, that's never a problem. (I think I'm a SAFER driver now, more than before). Funny thing, one of the tour leaders was backing up the van one day and didn't see a pole with a gas meter on the side of it, and hit it and busted out one of the back windows! (I was glad I wasn't the one who had done that!). They had insurance on the vehicle and it was taken care of and replaced, so not a problem. It was a large cargo van and had its blind spots, for sure. In fact, on the last hour that I was responsible for the van, I was backing up in a hotel parking lot to move the van to its final resting place, and backed into a curb. Not a problem - but as I pulled forward and looked in my rear view mirror, I saw I had come dangerously close to a car that was by the curb! Whew! I was very glad to have missed it and was very relieved to park the van and be done with my responsibilities as a driver. :)

More Music to the Ears

Last night, I went to a concert at Wolf Trap. I haven't been there in over 10 years probably...and definitely had gotten there by car at the time. So, I had two options for getting to the concert...I had reserved a Zipcar right near my apartment a week or so ahead of time, in case of bad weather. However, I wanted to try getting there via bike/subway/bus. Wolf Trap has a shuttle bus that picks up from the West Falls Church Metro stop, and it has a bike rack on the front of the bus. When I checked the weather earlier in the day, the threat of showers was out of the picture, so I cancelled the Zipcar.

After biking to the subway and arriving at the West Falls Church stop at 7:20, the shuttle was waiting in the parking lot. They didn't load the bus til about 7:45, which made me a little nervous, since the concert was supposed to start at 8 p.m. There were about 10 or so of us on the bus. I overheard a lady behind me talking to her companion about, "Maybe we should have driven..." and listing some of the reasons why. One reason I didn't want to drive there was to see how well the process worked for taking this shuttle. The website for Wolf Trap said that the shuttle was $5 roundtrip. I swiped my Metro card - though I didn't see how much it charged me. When we got seated, a bus attendant came around and gave us all a wristband to show the driver when we returned, that would give us a free ride back. That was interesting. Maybe Wolf Trap pays for half the trip for those who take the shuttle?

We got to Wolf Trap at 8, and it drops you at the driveway in front of the entrance gates. Door-to-door service. :) I had seen a GAZILLION cars parked all over the grassy areas and shoulders of the road when we arrived, and I was glad I didn't have to look for a parking spot. I would think you would have had to arrive at least an hour beforehand to be able to find a halfway decent spot and not have to walk so far.... I got my bike off the bus and locked it to a wooden fence. There is a bike rack up at the front gates area, but it was very thin & flimsy-looking. I don't think the rack was even bolted down. So I felt better locking it to the more secured wooden fence. The warm-up band was still playing, so I hadn't missed anything. The headliner group came on at 8:30.

After the concert was over at 10:15 or so, the shuttle didn't board and leave til 10:50...which was a bit later than I expected. The Wolf Trap website said it would leave in 20-min. intervals after the concert ended. Well, I did leave right after the last song, NOT the last encore... I wanted to be on the first bus to leave, since it was a Sunday night and I wanted to get home relatively soon.

I was concerned that we would get caught in a lot of the concert traffic when leaving. If the bus had left earlier, we would have missed a lot of the traffic...but it didn't take us too long to get through. There aren't too many cars that come from the driveway where the bus leaves, so it moves fairly quickly. We arrived at the Metro at 11:05 or so, but then we had to wait 20 or so min. for the subway train to come. The train ride isn't far (4 or 5 stops), and then I have a 10-min. bike ride home. So I got home a little before midnight. So it cost about $7.70 to take the metro and shuttle. If I had gotten a Zipcar, it would have been about $50, but I would have had the issue of dealing with the traffic (from a more congested area than where the bus left from). I probably would have gotten home about the same time. On the bus and metro, it was nice because I could close my eyes at least and not have to be concerned about the traffic and driving.

So, I think the experiment went well, and I'm glad I tried it and won't hesitate to do it again, if there's a concert I want to see. :)

Timberrrrr!

Earlier this month, I rented a car from Enterprise to visit a friend and spend the night with my sister in PA. On the drive home on Sunday night, a nasty storm was crossing the area, but it came and went before I arrived. I was driving down the George Washington Parkway, just passing the Rt. 123/McLean area, when all of a sudden I noticed a bit of leaves on the road, and a lot of BARK. Usually, if there's a storm, you'll see twigs and small branches, but not BARK. Strange.... There was more and more of it as I got down the road, and then, the traffic came to a halt. As I slowed down, I saw a medium-size tree in the grassy median strip that had been SNAPPED in HALF! Wow. There must have been some kind of strong winds with that storm - and I was glad that I hadn't been there when it came through. I had about 20 minutes before the return-time on my rental car...and if I sat in this traffic jam, there's no telling how long I would have to wait. I think that a tree or two must have come down across the road up ahead and who knows how long before Park officials or police could come and cut it up and clear the road. I hope no one was hurt. I looked at the grassy median strip and decided to be bold and pull a U-turn over it. I was hoping that I wouldn't somehow get stuck or have difficulty getting across. I've never had to drive across the median strip before - - let alone, to merge with high-speed traffic coming the opposite way.

Thankfully, it went without a hitch, and I backtracked to the previous exit and took the Chain Bridge across to Canal Road on the Maryland side. When I got to the Key Bridge, I took that back across into VA, and believe it or not, made it Enterprise right on time!! :)

In dealing with a downed tree on a bike... all you do is lift your bike over (or even under!) the tree and keep on going. :) Big difference. Of course, you could also die if a tree or big branch hit you on your bike (same with being in a car...). In fact, just a few weeks ago, a man riding his bike on the C&O Canal was caught in a storm, and died when a fallen tree hit him. :( When you're on the C&O Canal, there's really hardly anywhere you can take shelter....there are trees all around. :( NOT a good situation.

When I'm at home or the office, and a storm is in full force or about to happen, I just stay put and wait it out (especially if there's lightning involved). If a storm happens when I'm out on my bike in the city, I duck into a store or doorway. If I'm in the suburbs, I take shelter in someone's carport. When you're on your bike, you get MANY signs that a storm is approaching, so you usually have a little bit of time to find some kind of good shelter. You just have to be aware of the changing conditions and not delay in finding shelter quickly.