“Everything in life is somewhere else, and you get there in a car.”
If you read yesterday’s opening paragraph, ditto for today, except for the third cup of coffee.
It’s getting to be that time. The mass exodus will soon begin. Cars laden with suitcases, canoes or kayaks, fishing rods and bicycles will wait in line for hours on the mid-cape highway for their turns to cross the bridge to go home. I will be applauding their departure. My street will be quiet again, the roads empty and the store aisles clear. Out of state drivers will no longer doddle on the roads at about twenty as they take in the sites or checkout the restaurants. My cursing will be a thing of the past. I’ll stop wishing for a cow catcher on the front of my car.
I let cars out of side roads all the time. It’s a simple courtesy. Many people never acknowledge the gesture. A wave would have been nice and a box of chocolates even better. People who don’t use their blinkers, their turn signals, drive me crazy. I’m sitting and waiting for the car to pass so I get on the road, and it turns into the street where I’ve been waiting. My car is not invisible. Letting me know would have been nice. Then there are the constantly blinking turn signals. It is amazing the drivers never hear the clicking. I figure they’re old and hard of hearing which makes me wonder what they’re doing on the road in the first place. Lately the papers have been filled with pictures of cars driven into store windows. Usually the driver is old and always says he was confused and hit the gas pedal instead of the brake. I figure after 50+ years of driving he should have it down pat.
Yup, I’m griping. The Cape has been loaded this year with car after car after car. Even my street looks like a used car lot. I have no patience left. The air in my car is often blue. Enough is enough.
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August 14, 2010 at 10:57 am
Hi Kat,
I’m with you there. I had an office in Newburyport, MA. Nice enough in the off-season when there were no tourists. Horrible in the summer. Hellish during festival weeks of which they seem to have an unlimited number.
Then there is Ipswich, MA. All drivers in Ipswich drive as if there are only 6 vehicles in town. Their personal car is one and the other 5 are tractors in a field. When making a left turn, they never look left to see what is going to hit them first. They roll out into the street, stop and look right to see what is going to hit them next.
My car has an alarm that sounds if I forget to turn off the signal. It also goes off if the signal is broken. It is very annoying if the signal breaks while I’m driving because then I have to keep hitting the directional lever every few minutes to keep the alarm quiet until I can get somewhere to fix the light. You can’t win sometimes.
Enjoy your quiet season.
August 14, 2010 at 10:54 pm
Hi Caryn,
That alarm would drag me crazy. With my luck, it would be permanently program, and I would be driven crazy.
The line of cars on the mid-cape waiting to get off at my exit this afternoon was staggering. It seemed to go on for miles. I saw it in passing from one back road to another. The rule of thumb here is no main roads until after labor Day!
August 14, 2010 at 11:22 am
Prior to WWII many medium size cities, such as Dallas, Detroit and Los Angeles all had electric light rail systems known as ‘Interurban’ trains. After the war Ike Eisenhower pushed Congress to pass the interstate highway act to create the current interstate highway system. He fell in love with the Autobahn system in Germany and used national defense as the main reason to spend the money. Alfred Sloan, CEO of General Motors, and Harvey Firestone formed a dummy company to buy up all of the Interurban rail systems and dismantle them. The routes of those systems became the right of way for the current freeways replacing trains with cars and busses. Whenever I hear Dinah sing the Chevy jingle I think of the unintended consequence that have occurred in the last 60 years as a result of these policies such as air pollution, global warming, dependancy on foreign oil and suburban sprawl. The Dallas Area Rapid Transit system, which is only 10 years old, is spending billions of dollars building light rail along the same corridors as the old Interurban system.
August 14, 2010 at 10:58 pm
Bob,
The bike path here is built on what was the old railroad bed. It goes from Dennis down cape to P-Town. Trains used to run periodically to South Dennis where I live, but a few years ago all the rails were removed.
The science fiction books I read as a kid had monorail systems throughout the cities. Cars were a thing of the past. I wish that were true.
Going back to rail seems to be a wonderful solution, too bad it is exorbitantly expensive.
August 14, 2010 at 1:36 pm
Watching the decline of good driving in San Francisco over the last 15-20 years, I don’t even wanna get started, so I’ll leave at: yeah, I can relate.
August 14, 2010 at 10:59 pm
Rowen,
Then I commiserate with you!
August 14, 2010 at 3:15 pm
After spending time in Seattle and British Columbia, Canada earlier this Summer, I am now a huge fan of light rail, bus and subway traveling… the time and money saved is incredible and it is so convenient and i felt safe the whole time! This obsession we have with freedom of the open road really does not make any sense
in a day to day commuter lifestyle. I have never been up east as far as you are Kat, but i always imagined people riding bicycles everywhere:)
i will be happy when you are happier!
Our heat wave is subsiding next week’s forecast has the lows getting into the 70’s and maybe even the upper 60’s.
woohoo come on autumn!
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxooxox
August 14, 2010 at 11:02 pm
splendid,
I’ve traveled by rail all over the world, except here. I’ve always wished I lived in the heyday of trains traveling across the country. Watching the reruns of Lucy riding with Ricky, Fred and Ethel from NY to California made me jealous.
It is downright chilly right now. We sat and watched the movie all dressed in warm clothes and my friend had an afghan. It is so pleasant sleeping on a night like tonight.
The bicycles here are recreational. Few people ride them to work as the cape is really sprawled. It has very little in the way of public transit so a car is a must. I wish it wasn’t.
August 14, 2010 at 3:45 pm
Growing up on Galveston Island, September always meant two things: back to school and we had our island back from the tourists.
August 14, 2010 at 11:03 pm
Florence,
It is the same here. Thew roads will soon be ours again!
August 14, 2010 at 7:01 pm
Well that does it! You damn sure better not even think about moving to Florida.
August 14, 2010 at 11:04 pm
Z&Me,
I hadn’t ever thought of that possibility but thanks for giving me a good reason if I ever have a supreme moment of weakness.
August 15, 2010 at 2:52 am
Much the same over here, but our worst time is early spring when the cranes arrives. They stop their cars in the middle of the highway (where it actually is forbidden to stop or drive to slow), jumps out of the car just to looat at a crane walking around in a field. If they had driven 200 more yards they would have seen thousands!!
I think that they perhaps couldn´t afford blinkers on their cars. I mean it´s usually new cars that never use any blinkers so it must have been to expensive 🙂 🙂 🙂 And that clicking sound would drive me mad after a while. Perhaps they have turned on the stereo to loud?
I´ve also noticed that it is almost only in new cars they never wave as a thank You when I make it easy for them to pass me. Perhaps they had to sell an arm to have money enough to buy that car? Then I could understand why a wave is so hard to do 🙂 🙂 🙂
Have a great day now!
Christer.
August 15, 2010 at 10:09 am
Christer,
I’m laughing out loud at the idea they might have sold an arm to buy the new car. That would be the cost I expect: an arm and a leg!!
The stop the car and gawk crowd drives me crazy!!
August 16, 2010 at 11:55 am
I’m with you Kat. While waiting to turn off of 93 on to 104 Sunday afternoon an estimated one million cars with Massachusetts and New York license plates went by me to get on to 93 South. I was annoyed no one let me out to turn, but relieved they were leaving. I figured it was worth waiting ten minutes to turn to see them gone for another nine months. Bring on the Fall Fairs!
August 16, 2010 at 9:25 pm
Erin,
This week is the busiest so far. The line trying to get off the exit was so long I couldn’t see the end of it. You have had only a few years of this, and it seems to get worse the older you get.