Driving!?!?!

I'm pretty puzzled with this whole thing. I'm not quite sure what happened, but I've accepted it.

In September 2006, I moved on campus at PSU to allow myself to take classes all day long, and be able to go home in between classes. Living on campus was great since I was close to practically everything. One down side was that in order to park your car while living on campus, you needed to fork out $300 per term (that's every 3 months). This was a fee COMPLETELY separate from rent, utilities, insurance, and gas... and for what... to allow myself the convenience of dragging it out of the garage once a week. I was quickly turning into that old lady who puts like 500 miles on her car a year... going to and from church on Sundays. Well... NO SIREE.. NOT ME! I decided that the money I could spend on parking/insuring the car would be better spent on health benefits and tuition... so I sold the car.

Speed up to September 2007. I have been doing pretty well without a car. Friends have been great about taking me shopping, Safeway delivers, and every mini-mart and restaurant within a mile of campus knows me by name. What could be better, right?!?! Well, there's this great service provided in metro areas around the country. It's called the ZipCar. Basically, you register (for free), and they send you an electronic keycard. When you need "wheels", you login on their website, specify the hours you want it for, and reserve a car from one of hundreds of locations where they are parked. When the time comes, simply take your card and swipe it on the pad in the car's window. The car unlocks, the key is in the glovebox... and you're all set. Your account gets charged an hourly rate (rate depends on the size of the car), and you simply return it when you're done. Now, I have to say... I loved this!!! The cars were fully insured, and there was a free gas card in the dash. I tried out lots of cars this way (Honda Element, Subaru Imprezza, Toyota Scion, Honda Odyssey minivan, and even tried my first hybrid. I usually reserved it for 5 hours at a time, once a month.. and banked all my errands together. It also came in handy when I would need to run a quick "1-hour-worth" trip.. and there were 4 parked in front/back of my apartment. It was awesome!

Now, it's 2009. Between the years 06 and 08, I probably drove a total 1000 miles. As of now, since December 27th, 2008... I have driven 1400 miles (800of those were the drive from Portland to Utah in a UHAUL. Crazy!!

Saturday, I'm driving down to the Bay area. Yep! Apparantly the 800 mile trip, over mountain passes... in a 24ft long UHAUL wasn't enough to deter me from driving long distances relatively soon. Oh yeah, and after staying for a week or two... I'll be come back. Guess what??? The trip home is 750 miles too (blatant sarcasm intended)!! That's 1500 miles round trip. This means that between December 27th (when I picked up the uhaul) to February 7th (date planning on returning)... I will have driven 2900 miles.. and that doesn't include short "around town" drives. Over 3000 miles in the span of 6 weeks.

Colleen, maybe I really should look into that job as a truck driver. I wonder if Powell's has a book on Truck Driving Jargon for Dummies!?!?!?