If there's anything that we Detroiters understand, its how to throw an awesome summer festival. The weather around here gets so cold and crappy half of the year, we know how to make the best of our beautiful Michigan summers. Am I right? I usually am ok with rolling with the traffic shifts/road closures, but today I learned a little bit about another effect = adjusted bus schedules.
I roll up to the Royal Oak Transit Center right on time, am about to turn the corner onto Lafayette and run into a HUGE carnie backup. Lines of carnies with their fabulous carnival rides hooked up to trailers, ready to turn my fine town into the mania that is Arts, Beats and Eats. It becomes painfully obvious that the transit center is not operational, so I start biking to the nearest other stop. In a somewhat stroke of genius (I surprise myself sometimes), I look up the bus schedule and realize the buses are only running up and down Woodward, not even coming into Royal Oak.
I look at my watch. Sweat is dripping down my neck, I am dressed a little to fancy for biking (but only because I had a banker lunch meeting).
I am about to give up. I could make it home in time to pick up my air conditioned car and drive to work. It would be SO easy.
A voice pops into my head.
"Roll on Funke, you've come this far!"
Yes, yes I have. The voice of bus/biker reason! So I roll over to Lincoln and Woodward, lock my bike to a random sign and the bus shows up 15 mins later. Melissa is commuting north to Royal Oak for a meeting, and our buses pass around 7 Mile. I wave in her general direction and I am sure other passengers think I am crazy. Our dedication to bus/biking even apart makes me smile, and I am totally getting into the chill-bus-commuter-let's read-Crains-zone.
I am now headed back to Royal Oak for dinner, we are stuck in some awful traffic (and I am road-rage free!), someone's cell phone ring is Bel Biv Devoe's "Poison", and the driver looks awesomely like Cee-Lo Green.
That's life, yeah? Sometimes, you've just gotta roll on!
"Girl, I must warn youuuuu...."
I roll up to the Royal Oak Transit Center right on time, am about to turn the corner onto Lafayette and run into a HUGE carnie backup. Lines of carnies with their fabulous carnival rides hooked up to trailers, ready to turn my fine town into the mania that is Arts, Beats and Eats. It becomes painfully obvious that the transit center is not operational, so I start biking to the nearest other stop. In a somewhat stroke of genius (I surprise myself sometimes), I look up the bus schedule and realize the buses are only running up and down Woodward, not even coming into Royal Oak.
I look at my watch. Sweat is dripping down my neck, I am dressed a little to fancy for biking (but only because I had a banker lunch meeting).
I am about to give up. I could make it home in time to pick up my air conditioned car and drive to work. It would be SO easy.
A voice pops into my head.
"Roll on Funke, you've come this far!"
Yes, yes I have. The voice of bus/biker reason! So I roll over to Lincoln and Woodward, lock my bike to a random sign and the bus shows up 15 mins later. Melissa is commuting north to Royal Oak for a meeting, and our buses pass around 7 Mile. I wave in her general direction and I am sure other passengers think I am crazy. Our dedication to bus/biking even apart makes me smile, and I am totally getting into the chill-bus-commuter-let's read-Crains-zone.
I am now headed back to Royal Oak for dinner, we are stuck in some awful traffic (and I am road-rage free!), someone's cell phone ring is Bel Biv Devoe's "Poison", and the driver looks awesomely like Cee-Lo Green.
That's life, yeah? Sometimes, you've just gotta roll on!
"Girl, I must warn youuuuu...."
Heroic. I would have given up at the first sigjting of a carnie.
ReplyDelete