After a visit to my mom’s last weekend, I think I need to swear off cars for awhile. The Bay Area has a rather large problem when it rains in that everyone forgets how to drive. Not a problem for a pedestrian as I usually am, but it’s a mighty large issue when you are in a car.
For this trip, I ended up stuck with a Chevy Cobalt. As you can imagine, this American-made auto lived up to just about every possible facet it could with a name like that. So, there it is, raining and I’m trying to get out to the bridge. This is less than one mile from where I picked up the car. It took over an hour. And of course, once on the bridge, the trip took much longer. In fact, what is usually a 2.5 hour drive, took nearly 6 hours.
Obviously, the train at about 3.5 – 4 hours is a much better deal. The only catch is that it’s hard to haul back two cases of wine from Trader Joe’s on the train. Even still, taking a taxi out to Trader Joe’s and then back in the future might be the smarter choice because while on the train, I can relax, watch movies or just generally kick back for a couple of hours and enjoy a very nice ride.
I feel like an ass after this trip because I always recommend the train to others making this trip and of course then I don’t take it myself. Live and learn.