Day 2

WHO KNEW!!??

 it seems the reason I've not been to the mall for 10 years is because I hate to drive/park there!! It was quite enjoyable to hop a bus and ride there. The girls rode the (tiny) carousel, and begged to go to the "bounce place" (I declined this time).

Sorry, no pictures, I couldn't find my camera this morning before we headed out. I'm going to have to hunt it down.

I wore Lydia in the moby today, and she did a much better job of napping when she got tired.

We rode one bus to see where it went, and learned that we could make almost any of our Dr. appointments via public transit~ WOOHOO!! Only our family practitioner is outside of the bus routes, and really, I wouldn't want to take a sick someone to the dr. on the bus anyhow. We also learned that this bus would take us to Meme's house (Daddy's mommy), THAT was exciting stuff.

We went back to the Plaza, and rode the bus that took us to the mall and to Target, then back home.

THIS is when I learned that "buses are always late on Friday, and it being Good Friday, people are off work and out shopping more"

this is why we were 2 hours later than we had hoped to be getting home with overtired little girls. I think we will avoid the bus on Fridays, and particularly holiday weekend Fridays. I suspect Monday may not be good either for the same reason.

Still, it was a good day, we met several interesting people in our tavels:

*The Korean lady who asked Lydia why she was so grumpy looking (anyone who knows Lyddie, knows that she NEVER looks grumpy), then proceeded to talk non-stop for the next 1/2 hour until she arrived at her destination. Her name is Kelly, and she's a nanny~ not only do I know her life story, but those of the children she nannys for as well.

*The man at the mall food court who cleaned his grill before cooking Bekah's hamburger when I told him that she is allergic to sesame, and would he please cook her burger on the far side of the grill (thier buns had sesame and he toasted them on one side of the grill). He then gave her a PILE of pickles.

*The pleasant lady that we chatted with at the mall bus stop and played peek a boo with Lyddie.

*A fellow new bus riding mom who's car has been in the shop for over a week and had to get out and do something.

*The cycleist who sat in front of us and kept dozing. I wondered if I should tap him when he started to fall to the side, but he woke himself when he started to lean.

*Various grandma and grandpa types. One of whom asked if the girls (Aliana, 8, and Bekah, 5) were twins. This isn't the first time I've been asked this question, particularly when they are positioned in a way that one cannot see the size disparity. I told her "nope, same face, 3 years apart".

I was pleasantly surprised that, even with the long waits, we've not encountered one grouchy person. People on the bus seem to just go with the flow. Something else we can certainly learn.

Public Transportation, Day 1...

Day 1 went quite well!

I started with a trip (in the van) to the bank, then to the bus office to speak with Gloria, who explained the schedules to me, and I bought our passes.

Freshly informed, we headed home and rushed to the bus stop to catch the bus that comes at 15 till the hour. Unfortunately, I was thinking 15 AFTER the hour (at 1:15 planning to have lunch when we got to the shopping center). At the bus stop, we met a nice man that was carrying groceries home. We waited for quite some time and had to run to catch the bus comming the opposite direction at the other end of the block. We'll do better with the times today.

We found the bus to be quite clean, pleasant. The bus was rather full, but the other passengers were patient as we figured out how to scan our passes and took our seats in the back of the bus. The children watched all the goings on, and asked lots of questions. Aliana was particularly concerned that she would accidentally pull the yellow cord (signaling a request to stop), and made sure to sit well away from it. Rebekah stood and held the pole, while Charles bounced from seat to seat (until I told him to pick and plant).

Our bus took us to the Plaza (the main hub, all the bus routes begin and end here. We could have stayed on that bus and only lost about 20 minutes, but, it was already after 1, and the children (ok, and mom too) were hungry... so we got off and had lunch at the Plaza which cost us about an hour and a half. Got back on the bus and got going the right way.

This ride was longer than our first. Again the children chose the back of the bus, which was pretty empty this time.  It didn't take long for Lydia to learn that sitting on Mommy's lap on the bus is a perfect opportunity to nurse. She was quite tired, but she doesn't sleep very well when she's not at home in her bed. Rebekah stood at the window and looked out, Aliana, again sat well away from the yellow cord (which Lydia pulled when I asked Charles to hold her for a minute). And Charles layed across the seats.

We arrived at Kroger and got the shopping done. We got to the bus stop just as the bus was passing us (I got the time mixed up again, SHEESH!), so lost another 40 minutes there. On the return trip the children had decided to sit in the front. Aliana was worried that we shouldn't sit there, because someone may need to sit there (the front is the part of the bus that is wheelchair accessible). There was only 1 other passenger, so I assured her that if someone needed to sit there, we could move. The other passenger got off at the next stop, and we had the bus to ourselves for the remainder of the ride home. Lydia nursed and went to sleep. Our operator, Harris, got a kick out of Aliana's plans to pull the cord. She was worried that she would miss pulling when it was time for us to stop, and asked me continually if it was time. I told her pull it when we turned the corner at the fire station. As we were turning the corner, she asked "NOW MOMMY? NOW?", "yes, Dear, you can pull it now"... "ding, stop requested"... I wonder what Harris was thinking about this crazy bunch that just left his bus!

YUP, we're doing it again today! I think we will try going further out and switching buses, picking a route and seeing how far it goes! (this time, I'll remember to take the camera)

Experiment....

Because I'm always up for a challenge (and don't seem to have enough of them with 5 children?), April has been declared "Public Transportation for a Month" Month.

The girls and I will be using the Metro System when we go to DC in June, and it got me thinking about out own local transportation...

*What if we use the busses for a month?
*Will it be cost effective for myself and 4 children to do our regular errands on the bus instead of driving?
*Who will we meet along the way?
*What lessons will we learn?

Certainly we will meet new and interesting people and have new experiences that would not have had if we had stayed in the comfort zone of our mini van.

We don't live in a large metropolis so pouring over incomplete schedules and non-funcioning websites has been quite the challenge as it is.

*Looking at the local bus system, I'm not finding all of the bus stops on the maps--I'm not sure where, from our home, the closest bus stop would be. When I find the closest bus stop, will that be the most time efficient to get to where I need to go?

*The website has all the niceties and interactive maps... but it doesn't function

*We took a field trip to the bus office yesterday. We picked up all of the paper schedules, but, I definitely think there are routes missing.  We DID, however meet a very nice lady that explained the fares to us, maybe she'll be equally helpful with figuring out these schedules.

*Already we are learning valuable lessons in efficiency, and I'm sure we have many more to learn.