As much as I am enjoying the greater DC area, I have discovered that I'm not really a city girl. #1 problem I have with big cities: traffic. It drives me absolutely crazy sometimes!! For example, today. I got out of school early so I decided to take a trip up to the temple in Kensington MD. From where my car was parked to my final destination is 20.3 miles, an expected 24 minute drive (as estimated by Google maps, which by the way is maybe the most frequented website in my life since I moved here). I left at 1pm and the beltway looked like this:
Just how I like it! It took just under 30 minutes to get there. I love living so close- right? Right.
I finished up and headed home at about 4pm- thinking in my head that this was perfect, I would miss the worst of rush hour traffic. It was the perfect plan! The drive home is 24.0 mi, 33 minutes (and I can attest that this is accurate, based on previous experience. Unfortunately as I pulled on to the beltway, this is what I saw:
Alas! Rush hour starts by about 3:30 to 4 out here, especially on the beltway. Google maps is so kind as to warn you that the estimated time for driving can me longer in traffic- for this particular 24 mi route it estimates up to 1 hour and 20 minutes. Let me also tell you that I know that it can actually take that long to drive those 24 miles. I was lucky enough today that it only took 1 hour, but as I sat completely stopped on the interstate I just had to stop and think...ugh- why do people want to live here and how can people stand to drive this every single day? It would drive me bonkers!! I have a whole new appreciation of what it means to live "close" to something. Before I moved here I thought that anything within 5 miles was really close and 20 miles really wasn't far. Alas, I feel like where I am now, anything more than 2 miles away is kind of far!!
3 comments:
I hear ya sister. I normally live about 10 minutes away from school, but to get there on time during rush hour I have leave about 40 minutes early! Where do all these people come from? (p.s. I had a native east coaster tell me I talk really slow. Haha)
traffic is the pits. we miss you:)
Traffic and big cities is one of the reasons I was voting against Xan accepting UCLA. I didn't want to live in Los Angeles or Hollywood. I LOVE smaller cities NEAR big cities. You know, like a 3-5 hour drive away. Accessible but all the traffic and pollution are hours away from everyday life. LOL! Not too small. Provo or Ithaca small. Not middle-of-no-where-in-Idaho small. :)
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