This morning was the first day of school. Once again, public transportation. I had spent a lot of time writing down my entire TRAX and Front Runner schedule the week before. So confidently I got on the Front Runner as usual. 

On one of the last days of school the past Spring semester Colton came with me because he was finished at Weber and I only had one final. We talked to Steve about how we were going to Cambodia (Colton) and Mexico (me) during the summer. He asked us to come back and show him pictures and tell him about our trips. I had forgotten about that promise until last week, and today I happened to have two pictures from Mexico in my notebook. Steve, incidentally, happened to be on the Front Runner I was on going to Salt Lake Central. So I showed him the photos and told him a little about Mexico. He told me a funny story about when he was vacationing in Cancun with his wife and some other people. He got in a taxi by himself to go back to their hotel, and randomly the driver swerved off onto a dirt road and started basically driving into the wilderness. Steve was starting to panic and was getting ready to protect the large amount of cash he had in his wallet and to pull off his seatbelt and run for his life. The driver suddenly pulled over, pointed to a tree, and asked, “See that tree?”

“Yes.”

“Chiclet.”

“Chiclet?”

“Yeah, Chiclet.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Chiclet gum. They make it from the bark of that tree.” Then he proceeded to drive the taxi back onto the road and to the hotel.

I got off at the TRAX Salt Lake Central Station, then walked over to the TRAX, and got really confused when a TRAX labeled GRN W. VALLEY pulled into the station. Apparently I wasn’t the only one confused because many people walked over to the map while others walked to talk to the station people. I walked over to the map myself, but to my dismay, there was no longer a University line. There were only Sandy and West Valley lines. Okay, something like this shouldn’t happen on the first day of school! I asked a girl who looked like a student if she was going up to the U, and she told me that her friend called earlier and told her that they had changed the TRAX lines, and now you have to get off at the Courthouse and transfer onto another line. What a pain. So we waited for the right one, then got on, got off at the courthouse, then got stuck there for a long time because the door was broken. Goodness. By the time I had gotten to school, it had taken me an hour and fifteen minutes. So I was late to class. Well, actually I was on time, but the teacher started early (Who does that on the first day of school?!?!)

The class was three hours long, but as it was the first day we were only there for an hour. I took a bus home, hoping that it would be faster, but it was an hour and half after my class got out that I was safely in a house. I was commuting longer than I was even at school.

Thus my welcome back to public transportation.

It took me an hour later to figure out all the fast ways to get to and from school. I titled my TRAX schedule “Why I Need A Car.”