Driving

There've been some huge storms here this evening, and I was contemplating road trips while hanging out in the basement with The Husband and Kids.

St. Louis: The highway is the crazy let's send you around this loop so that you miss your exit, and then deposit you right back on the highway just on the other side of it. And while we're at it, let's keeps switching which side of the road the exits are on, so if you take a loop one time, you might miss it, but if you avoid it the next time, you'll miss it, too.
And heck, let's make every few exits send you into a really bad neighborhood. The kind where you immediately want to roll up your windows and lock your doors and you ardently wish you were driving an armored humvee-type neighborhood.
We don't have those where I live.


Little Rock: This city thinks it's fun to send a poor, unsuspecting motorist into oncoming traffic in order to enter or exit the highway. The speed limit on the frontage road is 50-55mph. The highway entrance and exit ramps cut across the frontage road in a sort of diagonal. There are yield signs for the driver entering or exiting the highway. In order to cross them, you must wait for the diabolical timing of the stoplights at the end of the frontage road to space out the traffic so that you have just enough time to get across the road and get your back end out of it before the next line of cars comes barrelling down. This is something I imagine I could get used to. The 10 whole feet of off-ramp, however, I cannot. I entered Little Rock just after dark. I found my exit, and expecting an off-ramp long enough to slow down without having to slam on my brakes, I started slowing down. Imagine my surprise when I had to brake harder than I ever had before in order to stay just behind the yield sign. Then I got freaked out again when I saw headlights that appeared to be coming at me. I nade it to my hotel in one piece, but never quite got the hang of that particular set up. The rest of the highway system, however, isn't too bad, and the city and surrounding areas are actually laid out rather nicely.

Vancouver: Eh. I like Victoria better.