Car Free in Raleigh

We ventured out this morning to do some final Christmas shopping before the mad weekend rush begins.  Our initial plan was to trek up to Triangle Town Center, then come back home after lunch, just in time for Malachy’s nap.

Instead, we ended up having Malachy’s picture taken… then bought frames at A.C. Moore… then hiked across the parking lot to get an umbrella stroller from Target… lunch at California Pizza Kitchen… dinner at Steak N Shake… a few other odds and ends…  and finally ended up back home at 7:00pm.

Several conclusions from the adventure:

1. Holiday traffic is the worst kind.
2. I’d much rather be on a bus than in a car, nine times out of ten.
3. You buy less when you have to lug it all home by bus.
4. Shopping is exhausting, whether it’s by car or by bus.
5. Some serious traffic reduction could happen if Raleigh would fund seasonal “shopping buses” that ran loops from Moore Square to the various malls and strip malls, on an hourly (or half-hourly) basis.
6. Umbrella strollers are well worth $11.
7. North Carolina spends a ridiculous sum of money keeping their roads perfectly paved.
8. Raleigh spends not nearly enough keeping their sidewalks in walkable condition, and even less on building new sidewalks.
9. The bus-riding rush hour crowd is much friendlier than the road-raging drivers around them.
10. Riding the bus is a great way to meet your neighbors and become more at ease conversing with people of other races, ethnicities, and socio-economic backgrounds.