Driving in Detroit

I’ve been driving in Detroit multiple times now.   It’s different than in North Carolina.  First of all there are the turn about to make a left turn.   The intersections with stop lights commonly don’t have a left turn lane, instead, you travel up a ways past the light to a u-turn lane which may or may not have a stop light.   This lane is only for left turns and takes you back to the spot you wanted to turn left at so you can make a right turn to head in the direction you wanted to go in the first place.   It sounds complicated, but it’s not once you’re used to it.   It’s just different.

The other thing happening right now is the road conditions due to snow over a week ago.   The temperature hasn’t either gotten or stayed above freezing long enough for the snow to melt.   This means piles of snow on side areas.   There is another white substance, salt, that’s everywhere.   It’s on your windshield, the side of your car, all the walkways and parking lots.   You can’t get rid of it on the windshield because spraying wiper fluid doesn’t work well in seven degree weather.   It’s a reduction in visibility, which I was grateful not to have when I returned home to clear, clean windows after our flight yesterday.

There is another substance, this one black, that’s on the ground.  It’s sludgy, dirty, grimy melted snow slush.   My daughter was thrilled to still have snow on the ground and delighted in splashing and dragging her feet through things I don’t even want to think about.   I explained to her multiple times how the snow in some places wasn’t snow we wanted to play in.   Once she got in the car and put her hands all over the bottom of her shoe to show me how it was just wet, not dirty.   Let us just say there was a lot of hand washing and the boots she wore while there have been washed twice.

The last thing is the drivers.  I was very impressed with the speed drivers drove.   Every time I’m on a highway I’ve seen drivers not driving the speed limit but significantly under it if conditions weren’t safe—and that means even in clear weather.   Most of the time I was on highways I wasn’t going the speed limit, even in the faster lanes when I was going with the flow of traffic.

The Big Boy Update:  My son has been playing with our younger neighbor, Whitaker, lately.   Much of the time my son must think Whitaker is too young to play what he’s playing, but in the last two days they’ve started playing for long periods of time together with Lego characters, doing imagination things together.   They sound very creative and when I listen in, I hear my son sharing and listening to Whitaker’s ideas instead of just dictating play—something we’ve been working on with him.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Mimi asked my daughter where she wanted to go for dinner on Thursday when they got to town.   My daughter thought and told us she wanted to go to, “Ghostbusters”.   I told her that was a movie, not a restaurant.   It was a while before she could convince me that yes, Ghostbusters was a restaurant by describing it with bright video games.   I finally realized she was talking about Dave and Busters.