Tag Archives: driving

Car Adventures (part 2)

Car Adventures (part1)


Yesterday I went to the Raleigh-Durham airport to pick up my mother after her trip to Portugal. I was doing fairly well, I thought, right up until I accidentally exited off of the highway exit to Aviation Parkway.

What followed was a confusing mess. I found myself once again in Brier Creek. I had the presence of mind this time around to find a turnaround right away, rather than going off into the sticks out of town.

I got back on the road that led to the airport, and there was this red sports car ahead of me that seemed to be in a hurry I incorrectly assumed they were also heading to the airport, so I followed them.

Unfortunately, they were going to Durham.

Once more I exited off of Aviation Parkway and now I was heading to Durham. Luckily, I noticed a turn-off that was marked Raleigh. This spun me around quite a bit and I ended up in a section of orange cans and traffic cones as construction was underway all over the roadway.

I slowly followed the road signs while this old car behind me kept revving its engine. I thought that they were maybe impatient, but as we rolled up to a stop light I heard their engine stall and stop. The other car managed to start up again and the driver pulled off the roadway. It was a very old car.

Once the light went green I pulled away and left the old beater by the wayside. Following the cones I eventually found myself on a northbound route to Raleigh. Some way down the road there was another exit to Aviation Parkway, which I happily took. This was sort of good but by this point, I had already overshot the airport by a great distance, and I was now traveling south.

At this point, I knew I needed some help. I pulled over to the side of the road and checked my map. For today’s trip, I had the good sense to bring an old phone that had Google Maps on it. It doesn’t have a SIM card, but the GPS worked enough that it could pinpoint my position after a few minutes. It doesn’t work for real-time navigating but I could at least see where I was concerning the airport.

After I got my bearings, I found a street where I could do a U-turn and I got myself headed back north. I was close enough now to the airport that I could see the big black signage indicating the terminals. I had intended on using the Cell Phone Lot at RDU as a waiting area until my mother’s flight had landed. I got lost trying to follow the directions I had written down and I gave up and instead used the parking garage.

Most of the floors were listed as OPEN in green letters on the electronic board, but when I started climbing up the round tower thing, each entrance was blocked with signage saying it was full. I did manage to find a spot on the 4th floor, quite far from the elevators.

Once I had parked, I took some time to breathe and congratulate myself for surviving the trip. The trip back was much easier as I had my knowledgeable mother with me in the car and she knows these streets very well.

While I was at the airport I took some pictures of the planes and the facility.

Questions or comments, put them below. Thanks for reading!

My First Car Adventure

Yesterday, I drove my mother to the airport for her vacation trip to Portugal. I drove her car there and back, a round trip of 70 miles on the fast expressway. The journey there was relatively simple with my mother’s guidance. However, the return journey turned out to be a challenge.

Everyone was driving so fast (70 MPH), so I decided I would hang out in the rightmost lane and go a bit slower. Unfortunately, I realized too late that I was on a Right turn-only exit off of the highway much too early.

I ended up stuck in Briercreek, just outside of a subdivision, and lost inside a shopping area. It took me twenty minutes to finally figure out how to get back to the highway. Not only had I never been to that part of the state, but I also had a clamshell-styled feature phone that could not use apps. I had no map to base my decisions on or a robotic voice to guide me to the highway entrance.

It was a game of eliminations. I managed to drive all the way outside of the shopping area and out into the suburbs where I turned around and backtracked my route. I made several wrong turns until finally, I began to see intersections that looked vaguely familiar.

I’m not sure when it happened, but I realized that the exit from the expressway should also be close to the entrance back onto it. Once I understood that I was able to make my way back to the exit but from the other side of the road. Sure enough, I could see the big blue sign marking the entrance to the 540 highway.

After I got back on I had no qualms with “going fast,” and I kept to the center lane the rest of the way home. It took me two hours to get home instead of one.

When I get my car, later this year, I will get one with onboard navigation. I swear this will never happen again.


Car Adventures (part2)

Licensed!

Part 1 of the Car Hunting series of posts.

I took my road test last week and passed. It was actually a lot easier than I was expecting.

I spent a long time reading the manual, practicing driving, and watching YouTube videos about the test and the maneuvers I would need to know.

Surprisingly, I didn’t need to know much. I didn’t have to parallel park, perpendicular park, pass another vehicle, or back around a corner.

Technically this was my 3rd attempt. But the first two times were in Washington state back in 2007. There I had to know the above items as well as learn how to safely navigate a double-lane traffic circle.

Thankfully none of the previous skills were necessary for the North Carolina road test.

Now that I am licensed, the next step will be to start shopping around for a vehicle. I have been looking at mild-hybrid and fully electric cars. I am not sure which I will go for, but I will likely get a used car.

See the continuation of this article: https://fatwalletrefugee.com/2024/02/29/unlocking-the-road-my-search-for-a-quality-used-car/