I drove!
Not sure if anyone reads lj anymore, but notesfiles are down and I had to record this somewhere...
I drove today! For the first time in fifteen years! Well, there was a bit of driving back in January in a parking lot with a foot of snow (because my friend wanted to be sure my first time was "harrowing") but today I drove on a real actual road!
I drove for about an hour. I let my dad drive me west of the nightmare known as Randall Road, then I took over on backroads parallel to Rt 47 (and a little bit *actually on* Rt 47) before dad declared that his heart had had enough for the day. :)
Really, though, he insists I wasn't that bad. I gotta practice breaking in time for left turns, which got a little jerky, but other than that it was fairly smooth riding on the roads. I absolutely suck at parking between the white lines, though...that's gonna need some serious work. On the whole, I wasn't as good at it right off as I thought I'd be, but I still might make my goal of driving to my brother's wedding at the end of June.
Backstory for those who don't know it...I had a permit back in my teens, but my residential high school didn't allow kids to have cars, so I never followed through into a license. Then in college I lived in the middle of Chicago, where having a car would've just been dumb. I thought I'd get it when I moved to C-U ten years ago, but it turns out their bus system is awesome. And cars are expensive. When I got my state ID renewed this past winter, I went ahead and took the permit test because I knew I probably wouldn't hit the DMV again for another five years. I had to wait for the weather to clear up, but today I finally got to start really practicing.
And lo, another seal of the apocalypse breaks!
I drove today! For the first time in fifteen years! Well, there was a bit of driving back in January in a parking lot with a foot of snow (because my friend wanted to be sure my first time was "harrowing") but today I drove on a real actual road!
I drove for about an hour. I let my dad drive me west of the nightmare known as Randall Road, then I took over on backroads parallel to Rt 47 (and a little bit *actually on* Rt 47) before dad declared that his heart had had enough for the day. :)
Really, though, he insists I wasn't that bad. I gotta practice breaking in time for left turns, which got a little jerky, but other than that it was fairly smooth riding on the roads. I absolutely suck at parking between the white lines, though...that's gonna need some serious work. On the whole, I wasn't as good at it right off as I thought I'd be, but I still might make my goal of driving to my brother's wedding at the end of June.
Backstory for those who don't know it...I had a permit back in my teens, but my residential high school didn't allow kids to have cars, so I never followed through into a license. Then in college I lived in the middle of Chicago, where having a car would've just been dumb. I thought I'd get it when I moved to C-U ten years ago, but it turns out their bus system is awesome. And cars are expensive. When I got my state ID renewed this past winter, I went ahead and took the permit test because I knew I probably wouldn't hit the DMV again for another five years. I had to wait for the weather to clear up, but today I finally got to start really practicing.
And lo, another seal of the apocalypse breaks!