Back in the Saddle

Mileage: 932
Time: No idea

Yeah, that's right - you read that correctly. The scooter is back! Today I optimistically rolled out my scooter and rode it to work for the first time in about four months. I say optimistically because it is supposed to rain today and it was probably about 49 degrees out this morning - not optimal riding conditions, but I was too excited to not take it out today.

And I suppose now is the time to let all of my adoring fans know that I have moved and am no longer taking my old route from downtown Baltimore north to Hampden. I'm now up with the yuppies and college kids in Belvedere/Govans/Rosebank/Towson South/whateveryouwanttocallit Northeast Baltimore. I love the new place and I love the location, but I have to say I am so far extremely disappointed with the commute. Let me give you a point of reference:


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I can hear all of you saying, "Wow, that sure does look like a nice easy commute. You must be so pleased to take such a pleasurable and pleasing route to and from work each day. How pleasant!"

Well, I can tell you that the route above is the result of a damn-near scientific period of trial and error over the last two weeks. And it is perfect. It is the best possible permutation of possible routes from my house through the hoity-toity neighborhoods to work. So yeah, its fairly pleasurable.

But the first few times I went were not. If you look at the map, the simplest and most direct route would be to take Northern Parkway west to Roland Ave., and then shoot South to Hampden. But all is not as it seems...Northern Parkway is a sonovabitch. Especially in the morning. Especially at 7:45 in the morning, which is when I go to work. There are four or five schools in that general vicinity, and they all hold up traffic and have weird special lights and generally make the trip absolute hell. I tried this way first, and it took me a half hour to get to work, which is twice as long as it used to take me to get to work from downtown. I was not a happy camper.

To make a long and boring story short, I tried every other conceiveable way between the two locations and settled on this one...its not perfect, I'm sure, but its close, and it doesn't leave me wanting to rip the heads off of small animals when I'm done. Or maybe I just got lucky today and there wasn't much traffic. I'll let you know.