Using those things on the end of my legs

[fenchurch]

Yesterday morning I took my car into the dealership for some regularly scheduled maintenance... I'd timed the appointment for around when rackham usually heads to work, so instead of mekle showing up, leaving his car and the two of them heading out in Rackham's MINI, we each drove a car over to the dealership. The two of them headed off in Mekle's car and I drove the MINI back home. I'd actually had a tentative plan to go walking with taradaktyl around the time the car was supposed to be done, so I'd figured I could walk to her place, go walking with her from there and then see if she could drop me off at the dealership afterward. However, she ended up having some other things come up... so I started trying to figure out who I could call to give me a ride (or whether I should just drive over in the MINI, pay for the car and pick it up later) when it hit me that the dealership really wasn't as far away as it seemed. I mapped it out online and sure enough, it was about 2.1 miles from our house... and how many miles do I generally walk every day for exercise? You got it. Two.

Of course, if it had been raining, there's no way I would have done it... but it was a rare and beautiful sunny day. It took me about 40 minutes to get there, which isn't too bad considering all the stops I had to make at intersections and such and the fact that there were hills (something I don't have to deal with at the walking track). And now my non-American (and probably a few of the American ones) friends are laughing at me for feeling so good about walking 2 miles to the dealership... but seriously, it's just not usually done here! It's a whole different mindset...

The one interesting thing was that I hadn't noticed, when I'd dropped the car off in the morning, that the dealership had NO CARS in the lot. None. But when I was walking by the lot on the way to the service department, it was pretty glaringly obvious. I'm not entirely sure how I could have missed that when I was driving in... bizarre! I asked about it and apparently they're having a problem that a lot of dealerships are encountering these days: they lost their funding. The lady I talked to said they're scrambling to find another lender and think they'll be back up and running within a week, but yikes!!

In other news, my in-laws are visiting for the weekend, so we should be doing a lot of running around and sight-seeing. Just in time for the colder, rainy weather to come in... and just in time for all the St. Patrick's Day festivities downtown. Could make parking interesting.

Comments

[deborahw37.livejournal.com]

Good going!


It's nice to get out and walk somewhere but when I've been in America many places just aren't designed for anyone on foot and people looked at me strangely when I asked for walking rather than driving directions to places quite close by

[fenchurche.livejournal.com]

That's it exactly! When I was trying to decide what route to take to the dealership, I actually discovered that one way I'd been thinking of going didn't even have a sidewalk!

[deborahw37.livejournal.com]

In Seattle I risked life and limb to get from my friend's house to the supermarket to get some groceries

No sidewalk, no crossing points and at the store the carrier bags didn't have handles because they were designed to go straight from a cart into a car!


So strange!

[saifai.livejournal.com]

Yay for walking! I know what you mean about actually having to walk somewhere. I can exercise sure, but to actually have to transport myself? Bah. Had that experience too with the mechanic. He's not that far from my house, but there's a big hill down the street that I would have had to conquer. LOL

Had the same thing here happen with the dealers all missing cars, but turns out they'd all taken their cars down to the fairgrounds for "car wars" whatever that is. Some sort of mass sale? *shrugs*

[jerusha]

Good for you! Although, I know what you mean about walking. We just don't do it much here in the Midwest.

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

It's about 3/4 of a mile from home to work and slightly further to the fire station, so those are the distances I'm used to walking at a stretch. I used to walk quite a bit more on the treadmill, but I got out of the habit. Need to get back into it ...

[rosiewook.livejournal.com]

We're in the midst of a construction process near my house to install sidewalks and crossing lights and benches. In about a month, I will have no excuse for not walking somewhere close by.

(Oh. Except the heat.)

But yes. I'm sure I'll be all proud of myself in Switzerland for walking to the next city over when everyone else will be mocking me.

The joys of being a lazy American.