I get around

It is the beginning of January and winter is now here. I have to admit, I am not thrilled to deal with this time of year because of the snow. Not because I don’t enjoy winter sports, but because I live 40 miles away from my workplace. Let me tell you, there are times I feel like northern Carbon County is the Antarctic’s little brother.

I don’t drive the most snow worthy car either. It gets great gas mileage, but once the roads get more than three inches, I am taking my life into my hands. It happens way too often.

As I shoveled my driveway yesterday (for the third time this week), I found myself remembering living in Hawaii and Australia and how my major mode of transportation was a mountain bike.

Good times.

Well, maybe I better think about that.

Biking

As well as that mode of transport kept me in decent shape, I remember having to take a change of clothes to work. Because of the warm weather, I would break into a sweat and be a dripping mess by the time I got to my jobs.

Then there was getting caught in the rain. Monsoons hit the Pacific all the time–and that is without it being a typhoon. A bike doesn’t do well in sheets of water.

As much as I loved biking all over the city of Honolulu and Noosa (the town in Oz where I resided), this type of transport was not always the best. Not counting the weather, I took my life into my hands facing traffic.

Hawaii had tourists who brought their local driving habits to the roads in this tropical paradise. There were bike lanes everywhere, but to those who were vacationing, these lanes meant little. I can remember cursing all the time at the stupid rental car (you can pick them out by license plate) that would almost hit me. It is not like a bike can go up against a car.

In Australia, it wasn’t the drivers not being courteous; it was me forgetting that they drive on a different side of the road and making a life threatening mistake. Even after a year, I never really got used to the rules of the traffic.

So, as healthy and fit as I got riding a bike to work, in actuality it is not my favorite mode of getting to my workplace.

Motorcycles

In Taiwan, where I lived for about a decade, I drove a motorcycle or scooter. At one time my stable of motorized bikes were a Honda DT (not only my jungle trail bike, but fun to use as my date bike because it was so big), a Sanyang farmer motorcycle (called a “farmer bike” because entire families would pile on this solid creature—though it only truly sat two), a Honda 150 (which had the engine bored out to make it mucho faster) and a scooter I used to carry laundry, groceries and my pup.

Again in rain, these aren’t great. Plus, even with weather gear, you get soaked if you travel any distance. I can remember teaching English in a robe lent to me by a student because I had gotten soaked thoroughly to where they had to put my clothes in a dryer.

I did use taxis if I knew the weather was going to be rainy, but way too often a storm would come out of nowhere.

Mass Transport

Taxis, subways and trains were the way I got around in China locally. Bullet trains and planes for longer distances. I never even considered owning a car because to get a license plate in Shanghai is tens of thousands of dollars. There is a whole industry selling cheaper out-of-city license plates to Shanghai car owners to get past the expense. I should also mention cars are super expensive. My boss drove a Lexus SUV LX that he paid over $200,000 for. That vehicle runs about half that price here. A hundred grand is a hundred grand.

Even motorcycles were not a transport I wanted to use because there was much more red tape in purchasing one than in Taiwan. Taxis were plentiful and cheap. Can’t say they were necessarily safe, although personally I was never involved in an accident. I saw plenty though—and it could be shocking.

I am really not surprised given how crazy fast some of the drivers went. More than once I found myself telling a driver to slow down. I have often said my restaurant/bar and Chinese taxi communication is my strongest suit when speaking.

There is a reason for that.

I did enjoy talking with taxi drivers for the most part, but I took many rides reluctantly because tons of drivers during winter would chauffeur sick. Wheezing and hacking by a taxi operator does not inspire confidence about your travel choice let me assure you. I got sick more in mainland China on a continuous basis than any place I have ever lived. I know taxi rides and taking the subway were often the culprits in me getting ill.

The Car

I have to conclude that having my own car has been the overall best mode of transportation to get to work, all things considered over the years.

I just have to suck it up and deal with winter, I guess.

It’s not like I haven’t dealt with winter driving before. The D.C. area, where I lived the first part of my life, gets snow all the time and way too many people from that region don’t know how to drive in winter conditions. Plus the actual roads there can be terrible. Potholes take your car out of alignment and potholes covered with snow just camouflages them. Bumper-to-bumper traffic is also no joy. I can’t say that has happened very often on Wyoming roads (barring an accident).

I have to admit, driving to work in Wyoming, even in winter, is actually my best travel experience getting to a job.

The treacherousness of winter roads in Wyoming makes my commute tough, and animals jumping in front of my car way too often make it tougher, yet my drive to work isn’t as bad as it seems as I examine my past modes of transport in getting to jobs. Plus, when the roads are clear, my drive can be spectacular.

So why do I dread winter so much here in Wyoming?

The cold, wind and snow mixing does challenge my drive for sure. Still, if the roads are not safe, I don’t drive.

So yeah, why do I dread winter so much?

It’s shoveling the stupid driveway!

Okay, that makes sense.

Whether it is using my almost useless snow blower (at least once it accumulates more than three inches) or a shovel, it is a chore that takes about 40 minutes. The past five days, I had to clear the driveway three times. One day it was seven degrees—not counting wind chill.

But if I don’t do it, I am going nowhere.

Jeez, no wonder I start to reminisce about my warm weather modes of transport as I dig out my snow covered driveway.

Hell, maybe I should just start looking at shoveling my driveway as a winter sports challenge. Try and get my time down or something like that. Maybe see how much snow I can lift in one shovel scoop. Might as well see it in a positive manner if I can.

It was a good thing I wrote a column on this subject.

No doubt this will be going up on my refrigerator for those days I fail to appreciate living in Wyoming is a good thing, even in winter.