no-car toubles.

Since I gave up my car in August (it was totaled in a car accident), I have been pretty happy overall. My car had become a burden of sorts that just cost me a lot of money, even though I rarely used it. Not having to pay for a car allowed me to finally replacemy cheap, not so great garage sale bike with a bike that actually fits me, which has made bike riding much more pleasant and fun. I've started becoming more familiar with the buses in my area (previously I pretty much just rode the trains) and I've learned when I need to ask for help.

This past weekend was hard though. It's probably the most frustrating time I've had since getting rid of my car. Friday I took the bus across the valley to my boyfriends house. He picked me up in his car and we did some errands. Hours later when we finished, he wasn't up for driving me anyplace and I didn't know how to get onto public transportation from his home, which would have involved a couple of miles of walking in the early morning, so we both went to sleep.

The next morning I needed to get home to do errands, only I couldn't get anyplace. Boyfriend was asleep and I have one of the worst sense of direction in the world and I plainly had no idea where to walk to get to the orange line or a bus station from his place. If only I had my bike with me, I felt like I would have been able to not feel so trapped and stranded. Instead I had to sit around and wait for him to wake up before continuing on with the day.

Then yesterday I took my bike out on my normal farmers market run. Instead of returning home afterward, I continued on to a friends house. After spending the day with friends and going on an unexpectedly difficult hike, I realized that it would be nearly impossible for me to bike home because I was so exhausted.

I also realized that where on Friday night, the bike would have been the key to be getting home, a couple of days later my bike became a burden I had to deal with. This is definitely something I need to work on. Just because I can get someplace at a given time using a certain method doesn't mean the same method with work coming home. With a car, unless you're drunk, it's easy. With a bike that you forgot lights for a place where you realize you left your Metro pass and all cash at home, it's a bigger problem. I don't know why this weekend was so bad, but hopefully I can learn from it and minimize problems in the future with getting both to and back home.