Public transportation

My senior year of college I had to take an early class. This was bad because it was at UCSD at like 8:30 or 9 in the morning and if you know anything about traffic I would have had to leave my house in Vista by 6:30 to make it to class on time. The cool thing was I could take the train. I commuted the whole time I was at UCSD and it was pretty sucky, especially the traffic I would hit coming home so I always wanted to take the train but the last train leaves at 7:40 in the morning. I scheduled my classes much later in the day then that so I always had to drive. Well this one class I had my senior year was perfect timing-wise to take the train, so I did.

If you have never taken the coaster south- it is a pretty cool trip. Ocean views, the steady slow rocking of a train. Plus you are going 60 mph and the thought of sitting on the freeway going 10 mph made the trip so enjoyable. The bummer came in when I had to go home.

Since I took the train I obviously didn't have a car and the class would be over by 9:30 in the morning. It was pretty stupid I even had to come down for that little class but I did. Well the trains don't run North until 4 in the afternoon- there was no way I was just goign to sit around campus all day. There was a bus route that I could hop on on campus that would take me all the way back to the train station in Oceanside and it would come right around 9:45- 10. I thought that would be great- it was so cheap to take the bus.

Here's what stunk. We never went on the freeway or faster then maybe 30 mph the whole time. It would take 1 hour and 30 minutes for me to get back to the train station. That time of day driving in that direction would take me about 35 minutes. So I spent a lot of time on the bus. I got ot see a lot of the little towns in between La Jolla and Oceanside- Cardiff, Encinitas, Leucadia. We used to drive right past the house that Farrah Fawcett used to own- it was in Carlsbad. I learned how to read on a moving bus while I was facing sideways for over an hour without getting carsick. Pretty amazing huh?

I used to talk to people sometimes. My first trip there were some nice ladies heading to Carlsbad that I got to chat with. I met one crazy lady on another trip. It was always interesting seeing who would come on and off the bus. I would try to guess about them based on their clothes, where they got on and off, what they had with them. It was a rather interesting study of people riding that bus.

Ever since that class has ended I don't think I have been on another bus. And that is fine with me. All totalled, I spent somewhere around 15 hours on that city bus- crazy.