'Knees weak, palms are sweaty'
I live about an hour from the Detroit area. I say "the Detroit area" because I've always considered anywhere covered by Detroit radio stations' traffic coverage to be "Detroit." It always annoyed my Shelby Township-native college roommate that I said she was from Detroit and couldn't see any difference between where she lived, St. Clair Shores or Dearborn, so I have since expanded to calling that whole fuzzy Eastern region "the Detroit area" instead of "Detroit."
I have no family over here and very little reason to come to the Detroit area, so I've never learned my way around or bothered to learn to distinguish one area from another. Wyandotte? Greektown? Royal Oak? 8 Mile? It's all Greece to me.
Well, the first month and a half of my internship will be spent in my employer's Bingham Farms office. I have to make the 40-minute drive each way, once a week through April and thrice a week through May.
It's an interesting drive for someone whose freeway experience consists almost exclusively of the strip of I-94 between Ann Arbor and Albion. "There's a three car pileup on I-696," I remember hearing on Detroit radio stations. "Traffic is at a standstill on I-275." "The southbound Lodge Freeway is backed up to 12 Mile."
I have sometimes ridden on these famous roads, but have never driven them myself. I will finally drive them! With their massive traffic problems! In rush hour!
Great.
srah - Thursday, 15 April 2004 - 4:26 PM
Tags: ann arbor, detroit, driving
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Comments (10)
Cheryl - April 16, 2004 - 9:16 AM - ℓ
It took me over 2 hours to come back from Utica once, and it was only 3:30 rush hour. That's really just an hour drive. Have fun!
Urs - April 16, 2004 - 10:49 AM - ℓ
Well, I wish you luck with the freeway driving.
Rush hour traffic sucks - I have never driven through Chicago at rush hour, but in reality, any daylight hour in Chicago is rush hour. I have been in rush hour traffic in the Twin Cities, and their rush hour starts at like 3pm. Because of some accident, I was once stuck on 494 (which I took to avoid a bottle neck at the place where 94 and 694 split - I normally take 94 through the cities because its more fun) for like THREE HOURS. It SUCKED.
I wanted to just get out of my car and scream, and I probably could have done that for a half hour and not moved. Eventually I got to an exit and made it over to 94, but since rush hour was official over, the radio stations never had any traffic alerts so I never knew why things were slow. But yeah, it took me 4 hours to go the hour and a half from St. Cloud to River Falls, WI. Not fun. But it gives me an anecdote about traffic, so yeah
richard - April 19, 2004 - 3:13 PM - ℓ
I went to Port Huron on Saturday.
I missed my turnoff to I-69 on the way home, so I wound up taking I-94 to I-696 to I-96.
What an adventure!
It only added about 15-20 minutes to my trip, but it had the advantage of giving me an opportunity to stop by the Beaners at the Okemos (110) exit
I commuted from Saline to Bingham Farms every day for about a year. 12 to 23 to 14 to 275 to 696 to the Lodge to Telegraph. Usually, it took an hour. In the winter, it sometimes took more than two.
I had to drive all over the "greater Detroit" area as part of my job. I used to have to look at a map to get to the Palace. Now I can do it with my eyes closed, talking on the cell phone, and eating a strawberry danish. (That's probably the only good thing I got out of working for that company. They're despicable.)