Teyrnon

Today I took a walk in the direction of Hwy 78. It's been a while since I've walked out that way or really walked that kind of distance. Maybe even a couple years. Mostly because I haven't had a reason to or felt like it. Partly because I've been having weird leg pains and cramps since 2010 and have been reluctant to walk so far from the house. Interestingly it gets really bad when I have to stand for more than a half hour or so.

It was a nice enough morning for a walk. By time I got to the Park & Ride lot the sky was darkening ominously. At that point I decided the Park & Ride lot was far enough for today's walk. It was only a little more than a stone's throw from Hwy 78. Beside's a mile and three fifths round trip is probably quite enough for the first time in a couple years. The downpour started a half hour after I got back to the house.

I walked around the Park & Ride lot for a little while. It hasn't changed too much though the big sign at the far entrance has faded into unreadability. A little surprised they haven't done something about that. The signs announcing the lot rules looked pretty new. Curiously the overflow lot was open and a pair of black SUVs in it. I don't think I'd ever seen it open before. Usually it's chained up and completely empty. Always wondered what the point of that was. The bus stop looks to be still in good shape. I stopped to read the notices taped to the glass. Just some safety tips and information about upcoming holiday schedule changes. Should it bother me that the safety tips pretty much all boiled down to not using electronic devices at bus stops or on the buses and keeping them hidden at all times?

Let's take a moment to discuss Breeze Cards. It's something I should have researched more thoroughly before starting out. I really should have checked MARTA's propaganda as well as the stuff I was getting from GCT, GRTA, here and a couple Gwinnett County related forums elsewhere, Though most of all I really should have checked Wikipedia which I now see has what is probably the clearest explanation of the things I've yet seen. It's impossible to use MARTA without one. MARTA has completely replaced the tokens, transcards, bus to bus and bus to rail transfers with the things. It's difficult to get out of a station without one. The card opens the fare gates both ways; in and out.

After a few confusing moments revolving around the Bus to Rail transfer the driver of the express bus gave me I went ahead and bought a card from one of the vending machines that seemed to be even more numerous than the token machines of old ever were. Ended up getting a Breeze Card encoded with a one day pass which functioned exactly like the transcards I used. Well, maybe not exactly, since those transcards were magnetic strip cards these new fangled Breeze Cards use some sort of RF chip. While I'm not sure how I feel about the new cards I have to admit their nicer in at least one way. Back when I rode MARTA regularly I had more than one transcard get mangled by a faregate.That won't happen with a Breeze Card.

Ah, yes, I was arrived at Five Points. I very carefully noted where I got off the bus figuring I'd be catching the bus later but it didn't work like that. Thankfully I finally reread the print-out of the route web-page enough times that it clicked that the morning and afternoon routes were completely different. They didn't stop at any of the same spots downtown, except for ending and beginning at the Civic Center MARTA station.

From Five Points I went to Decatur, where lay a wonderfully accessible branch of my bank with in easy walking distance of the transit station. The place had changed a bit in the past three years. I almost didn't recognize it. It used to be warm and homey but now they've followed the trends of the other branches and taken it to the distant, cold, and sterile end of the spectrum. Nothing endures but change as they say. By time I finished there it was 9:00. After some thought I decided there were two places I wanted to go for today: the Library and Oxford Comics.

So, I headed up to Oxford Comics first. Figured since the library would be closer to the Civic Center station that it would be a good finale. I arrived at Oxford Comics as they were opening. It's amazing but I don't think the place has really changed all that much since my last visit in 2003. Almost everything was in exactly the same places as it had always been. They have got to be the only place I've visited that has not appreciably changed their layout over the years. It's nice to have one constant.

I arrived at the library a little before noon would have gotten there earlier had I not caught the wrong bus when I left Oxford. The library was great I spent a wonderful hour communing with the OED and filled a few pages of my notebook with wordly goodness. Unfortunately in my haste this morning I forgot to bring my list of words to look up, but I got the ones I could remember and a few others besides that caught my eye.

After the library I went to the Chick-fil-A in Peachtree Center. It had been a few years since I'd had a sandwich from a Chick-fil-A. I should have waited a few more years.

I caught the first bus for Snellville at the Civic Center and here I am at home. All in all it was a successful trip. The express bus is a viable option for those times I just have to get somewhere on a MARTA line but I don't think I'll do it often. I've grown unaccustomed to getting up before dawn and I was very winded when I got to the bus stop this morning. It's been too long since I walked any real distance with a backpack. It took a bit more than I care to admit out of me today. On the plus side I got my exercise. Tomorrow I think I'd do at least an hour on the bike if my legs aren't too stiff. They were really sore when I got home but now it's just a dull ache.

Speaking of aches. I kept having these spells where my left calf muscles locked up painfully and I was limited to a kind of hobbling shuffle when walking. I've had that before over the last two years but this is the first time I've really pushed it to keep moving. From my experiences I think it's the cold that really irritates it. It seemed like it started locking up and hurting when I was outside in the cold and every time I was in a really warm building it felt better and I could move normally again. I'm going to have to watch for that more carefully in the future. and if that pattern holds up I'll invest in some really warm socks.

The cold had another effect on my hands. The skin would crack and I experienced bleeding from around the thumbnail on my left hand at one point when I was outside without gloves. That was a bit disconcerting. After that I started making a point to always put my gloves on when leaving a building. That seemed to help greatly.

On that note I'll call it a wrap.

It looks like we finally have bus service down Highway 78. It's a commuter schedule with 4 trips going into downtown Atlanta in the morning and 5 trips returning in the late afternoon. One of the stops is the Hewatt Road Park and Ride; a tad over half a mile from the house. I'll give it a try when I'm finally feeling alright again and like my old self. I was beginning to think the Hwy 78 bus would never become a reality.