driving

The 6 AM Rule

I have a 6 AM rule.

If the airport dropoff requires me to wake up before 6, I am operating in dangerous territory. When I am awake, I am awake — but the manner in which I arrive at “awake” matters enormously. I shake the sand out slowly. I need time to build momentum. If that process starts before the sun has any intention of showing up, I will spend the rest of the day staring at walls, losing verbal sparring matches I would normally win, and napping in chairs I had no plans to sit in. I am, essentially, a human screensaver.

My wife has no such limitations. She can wake at 3 AM, drive to the airport, come home, and go back to sleep like none of it happened. I find this both impressive and deeply unfair.

The labor of being the free Uber isn’t actually free, by the way. It’s paid for in brain cells and accidental afternoon naps.

Earlier this year — February, maybe, or early March, the details are fuzzy in the way that only pre-dawn experiences can be — I did a 5 AM dropoff. The wakeup was somewhere around 4:30. I won’t describe the rest of that day except to say I spent most of it trying to goose a single brain cell into firing.

So I updated the policy. One pre-6 AM spousal run per quarter.

This coming Saturday, her flight is at 5 AM. The math on that wakeup is not complicated. She asked me something about the flight options — “5:00 or 1:00?” —, and I thought my preference was obvious. She said, “Oh, they gave me the 5:00 flight.” There I was. A man of principle, staring down his principles.

I haven’t decided yet what I’m going to do about that. A paid Uber is getting my vote, but votes change

Now, the rules are not the same for everyone. I’ve developed what you might call a tiered system. It is not written down anywhere, but it is very real.

Hockey boys know the score. They’ve seen enough early practices to understand that some hours of the day are not meant for human activity. If their flights are reasonable, I’m happy to run them. If they’re leaving at what the military calls 0-dark-thirty, they’re calling an Uber without any hurt feelings on either side. This is an understood arrangement.

Exchange students have, in my experience, been European, and Europeans apparently book flights like reasonable people. Arrivals tend to land in the afternoon. Departures can get a little early, but my wife handles those. She, as previously established, is built for this.

Family is where the policy gets complicated, mostly because family comes with feelings attached to it. There is an ongoing negotiation in our house about whether saving forty dollars on an early flight is worth what it costs in parental sleep and the general goodwill that holds a family together. I have opinions on this. I keep most of them to myself.

The honest truth is that family members (not our kids) who visit us for weddings usually have rental cars. Which means I can say, with complete sincerity, “Too bad you’ve got the rental — I would have been happy to run you.” And I might even mean it. I just don’t have to specify that my happy shuttle service has operating hours, and those hours start at 6.

The OKC airport, for what it’s worth, is a genuinely pleasant experience. Easy drive, easy TSA, more marijuana dispensaries along the route than I remember from DFW but fewer traffic lights, so it probably evens out. The only real drawback is that flights out of here tend to leave early. If you’re connecting through Dallas or Denver to get somewhere real, your day starts at an hour that tests people.

It tests me, anyway.

My wife is fine.

Almost Okie

Today, an era ended. I officially traded my Texas swagger for an Oklahoma “Okey-dokey.”

I switched my driver’s license.

I walked in, sat down in front of a woman, she looked at my papers, and sent me to the one chair reserved for photos. Barely 15 minutes from entry to exit. Three miles from my house. No app telling me when I was allowed to show up. No line snaking through a building the size of an aircraft hangar.

In Texas, you schedule days out — months if a driver’s test — and pray the system doesn’t go down on your day. If it does, you haven’t wasted a whole day. You’ve wasted a whole day and your will to live. There’s a substation near most Texas neighborhoods for plates and stickers, but for a license? You’re probably driving 25 minutes to the mega-processing center and clearing your calendar. Here, I had the choice of many locations. The office I chose handled everything. One stop. One very efficient woman who probably wished I’d stop complimenting the process.

The guy behind me had his required documents on his phone. He emailed them to the nice lady and they printed them for him. Both methods work. One involves planning ahead. I’ll let you guess which one I prefer.

I did not ace the eye exam. I want to be clear about that. I passed — barely — but I read the “just a line short of blind” line, and apparently that’s good enough to drive. Nobody seemed alarmed. I appreciated their restraint.

They also gave me genuinely useful advice: go for the 4-year license instead of 8, because renewal is free after 65. In Texas, I might have paid extra just to avoid coming back. Here, I almost want to return.

We’ve lived in Oklahoma for almost a year and a half. My wife was still technically on a Texas payroll — with perks tied to her Texas address — which gave us a convenient excuse to keep the fiction going a little longer. When that chapter closed and a new opportunity let her be honest about where she actually lives, the last reason to delay went with it.

So I kept the Texas license. Not for legal reasons. For sentimental ones.

As long as it was in my wallet, I was still a Texan. There’s a low-grade smugness that comes with that, and I hadn’t realized I was addicted to it. I liked our community, our neighbors, the restaurants we knew by heart. Oklahoma has been kind. Oklahomans are genuinely good people. But we haven’t found our Mexican place yet, or our Italian place, or the one spot we’d drive across town for without discussing it first. My wife asked where I wanted to eat recently and I said Chick-Fil-A. She wanted somewhere nicer. Neither of us could name it. That’s the whole problem right there.

The restaurants will come. I know that. My patience just didn’t get the memo.

The real reason I finally made the switch: I want to vote here. We watch Oklahoma primaries and bond issues play out on TV and I have no voice in any of it. I’ve said for years that if you don’t vote, you can’t complain. I meant it. Time to get in the ring.

So now I’m an Okie. Officially. I’ve got the license to prove it, and I only had to squint a little to earn it.

The Illusion of Travel Control

My daughter’s flight was postponed again. What started as a clean six-day babysitting stint for granddaughter Ellie (and Grandpa Andy) has quietly stretched into eight — and honestly, I’ve stopped checking the flight tracker. When they land in OKC, I will know.

Nobody made a bad decision here. This was a collaborative disaster — a joint venture between Mother Nature, Spring Break crowds, and whatever dark energy the TSA stirred into the blender this year. Credit where it’s due: it takes a village to strand a family.

They were already down badly before the delays started. The baby’s ears hurt, and she wailed the whole first flight. Their Orlando-bound plane got rerouted to Jacksonville due to the weather. At that point, the vacation feeling exits the chat. Their luggage allegedly went to OKC, but actually took a personal detour to DFW and got a motel there. Hotel scrambles. Gate changes. A baby who does not care about any of this and simply wants her schedule honored.

Parenting is a full-contact sport under ideal conditions. Doing it in an airport terminal, without your gear, running on cold coffee and evaporating optimism — the difficulty multiplier goes sideways fast. I’ll retell their specific calamities once they finally drop off Ellie, if they can describe it without breaking into a cold sweat. What I know already would have had me snapping at anyone who got between me and my seat.

We Were Always a “Let’s Get This Over With” Family

My wife and I were never emotional travelers. Survive first, process later — that was always the policy. And somehow, across twenty-something years of family road trips, we processed a lot of flat tires.

We once drove from Texas to Ohio and caught a flat before we’d even cleared Tennessee. AAA swap, plug at a tire shop, McDonald’s to distract the kids with breakfast — standard chaos protocol. We hadn’t even left the parking lot when a second tire quit on us. We ended up in an elaborate multi-mechanic shuffle that eventually got us to Ohio, just a few hours behind schedule and significantly more familiar with local auto shops than any tourist should be.

Then there was the Carolina trip. We spent a night hunting for a hotel on the West Virginia Turnpike, finally falling into bed around 2:00 AM — only to wake up to another flat. The highlight was the tow truck driver who couldn’t fit all four of us in his cab. His solution? Hoist the van onto the flatbed with us still inside. We spent the ride elevated above traffic, waving at passing cars like we were the grand marshals of a very sad parade.

Even cruises weren’t safe. We disembarked in Galveston, ready to head home to DFW for laundry and yard work, when one of our tires embraced a nail with the quiet resignation of something that had simply had enough. We spent the next couple of hours eating Mexican food and watching the Olympics on a big screen while the tire got mended. Honestly? Not the worst afternoon we’ve had.

The Illusion That Makes It Bearable

Here’s what I keep coming back to, though. Every one of those tire stories was ours. We drove into them. We loaded the kids, took the route, made the call — and when things went sideways, we were the ones considering pulling out the jack before remembering our AAA membership.

Granting full trust to an airplane hands all of that to a system you can’t negotiate with. When it breaks, you’re just cargo in someone else’s problem. My daughter couldn’t reroute. Couldn’t drive around the weather. Couldn’t do anything but stand at a gate with a wailing infant and wait for a screen to change.

Yes, they skipped the long haul to Ohio. But when you’re watching the adults hit a wall while trying to keep a baby content in a terminal, those West Virginia flat tires start sounding less like disasters and more like a reasonable trade.

At least when you’re stranded on a turnpike, you drove yourself there. Her parents may need a while before they’re ready to find out if the skies are actually friendly. Ellie, for her part, would probably have been fine either way.

The 23-Hour Sunday: A Lesson in Oklahoma Nice

I have lived in Oklahoma for almost a year and a half now, and most days I’m met with a frequent reminder of just how nice people are here. We aren’t just talking “Chick-fil-A” level service; this is something deeper. As a Midwesterner by way of Texas, my critical thinking usually searches for the catch—but in Oklahoma, the “My Pleasure” attitude seems built into the asphalt.

The DFW Gauntlet vs. The OKC Glide

Coming from the northeast side of Fort Worth, I’m used to a certain kind of vehicular combat. To get to DFW Airport, you had to survive a dozen traffic lights, a train crossing, a toll road, and that tangled knot where 820, 121, and 183 all fight for the same patch of dirt. You’d shrug at the chaos and mutter, “What else you got for me, Mr. Highway Engineer?” Up here, the experience is so different that it almost feels unfair.

From our house to the Will Rogers World Airport, we encounter fewer than five traffic lights. In fact, we don’t even see a signal until the terminal is practically in view. This lack of friction invites you to relax. It’s likely why I can’t think of a single roundabout in our part of Oklahoma City; the 4-way stop remains the preferred method for handling the world, one car at a time.

The Great East-West Bottleneck

However, that casual pace is put to the test just north of our house. We live near one of the last major north-south roads before the city peters out, and our local 4-way stop can easily see two dozen cars backed up at once. While the north-south flow is steady, the east-west traffic can become a genuine test of character.

You would think this would breed the “every man for himself” mentality I learned on the Texas tolls. Instead, it seems to build a peculiar kind of patience.

The Two-Fingered Salute

This morning, my wife and I were heading north to church. As we pulled up to that busy 4-way stop, I encountered a driver to my left heading east. While he had no backlog to contend with at this hour, he insisted we go first. He gave me that classic move: the two-fingered wave from the top of the steering wheel. It’s a motion that says, “Get on with it. I can out-wait you.”

I took him up on the offer. Why delay our arrival at church, even by a few seconds, when someone is determined to be more patient than you?

A Deficit of Time, A Surplus of Grace

What made this act of kindness truly remarkable was the timing. This was the first day of Daylight Saving Time—the annual 23-hour day that serves as the bane of most people’s existence.

On a day where every human being in the Central Time Zone is starting with a sixty-minute deficit, this man chose to use up a few more of his precious seconds just to put himself at a further disadvantage. “Out-nicing” another driver is one thing on a standard Sunday, but when you see it happen during the exhaustion of a 23-hour day, you know you’ve found something special.

You must be in Oklahoma.

Three White Vehicles

As I was driving my daughters on one of those plentiful summer activities this morning, I noticed 3 white cars in one of our neighbors driveways.  (To be more accurate there was a truck, mini-van, and a Camary-ish car)  Always one to invite my brain to wander, I tried to think thru the benefits of having 3 white (or any of the same color) vehicles in the family.  This is the list I got:

  • Vow:  Although contrived, there may have been a vow of some type taken in the past.  Maybe the vow went something like this, “Because I was so horrible to our goldfish, I will only buy white vehicles the rest of my driving career.”  Of course, the vow is likely to have been far more convicting than this one.  I erred on the side of humor rather than hitting any nerves.
  • Color Blind:  Why have lots of colored cars if you can’t distinguish them anyway?  Just go with one that your defective eyes can reliable detect every day of the year and twice on Sundays!!
  • Family joke:  This one might have potential.  I had friends once who had two identical cars.  One was named “Spot” and one “Stripe”.  I could never tell them apart, but the game worked for them.  (They also have 4 boys.  Back in the day when boys/mens white socks had stripes on them, the mom used this to her advantage.  Each boy had socks with a different stripe.  If the wrong color stripes showed up in the wrong drawer, it was a sorting error or out right theft.)  A son might ask the question, “Which car can I take tonight?”  The dad will just say, “Take the white one.”  (In Texas, this is probably foolish.  Most kids seem to think they deserve their own cars.)  It might just be one of those corny jokes that prevents other color cars from being considered.
  • Perceived Goodness:  Some may want a white car just because it looks more innocent than a red car.  The Lone Ranger rode a white horse.  So, maybe dad’s Mustang convertible is just part of his lifelong quest to fine a good friend named “Tonto” out there on the range.
  • ….most realistic: White cars don’t show dirt as quickly as a dark car.  And, for those who don’t like to visit the care watch too frequently, a white car is an excellent addition to your families portfolio of vehicles.

Wet Driving

Since returning from my trip earlier in the week, Texas has been wet.  When Texas or any place is wet for long due to constant rains (the “flash flood” type rains have a slightly different set of rules than the standard rain driving rules), there are a set of rules common sense drivers should follow.

For your benefit…

  • Hydroplaning:  I have found the far right lane tends to be the lane where the water congregates.  What is hydroplaning?  It is water deep enough that when you try and drive through it it slows you down significantly.  And, if the water is deep enough, it limits your ability to control the car.  (The really bad side of this is usually found under bridges or when rivers/streams overflow.)  While this may be an issue with limited impact to other drivers, if you hit the water just right and shoot up a bunch of water, it may cause other drivers to need their…..
  • Windshield Wipers:  While it seems obvious these are necessary when it is wet out, the speed of the wipers can contribute greatly to your visibility.  IF someone hits a big puddle at a high rate of speed and you just happen to be next to them when the “spray” flies onto your windshield, the wipers help you to get oriented and recover quickly from the blinding spray.
  • Stopping Distance:  IF you are blinded by a windshield flood and you don’t have a proper stopping distance, you will wish you had one.  When I went thru drivers ed MANY years ago, they taught you should have a 3 second stopping distance.  (Watch the car ahead of you pass a certain landmark, light pole or whatever.  Count the seconds until you pass it.  It should be over 3 seconds for good weather and more when wet.) While my competitive nature sometimes modifies this rule, it is still good to have a baseline.  When cars are doing lots of weaving, I especially like to modify the rule to keep them from jumping into my lane.

For the benefit of others….and sometimes you

  • Headlights:  Can you say “pet peeve”?  As the rains poured down today, I didn’t see lots of cars without headlights, but they were still there.  (When the rain is lighter, the ratio or headlight-less drivers seems to be higher.)  As I look in the rear-view mirror, I am not blind–I see most everything.  But, if the headlights are on, I see you more quickly.  While lane jumping is not a great idea when it is wet out and the reaction time of other drivers might be slower, a quick glance that does not immediately reveal a car lurking on your tail may lead to a lane change with a conversation punctuated by horns. When in doubt, headlights are good.
  • Turn Signals:  I did fail ALL of my mind reading classes in college.  And, I don’t think they offered any mind reading classes in driver’s ed.  (An aside….I was taught the I-P-D-E method of driving.  Identify the problem.  Predict what they will do.  Decide what you will do.  Execute your plan.  I guess there is a bit of clairvoyance in there…at least an anticipation.) Turn signals are just a bit of information that allows the other drivers to go, “Oh, he is switching lanes.  How does that affect my safe little cocoon I have tried to create for myself out on the road?  (Cocoon is only used to express a place of comfort.  It has nothing to do with butterflies or any mode of  transportation other than driving.)

In conclusion, when driving on the road there is a “handshake” agreement made with all of the other drivers out there.  While some days the handshake may be like a wet dish rag and other days it may be a firm “Vote for me” type  handshake, the road is not your private domain.  It is a shared resource for all taxpaying citizens (and non-paying) to enjoy. (Or, if you hate commutes, not enjoy.  But, it is still there for you.)  It is a necessary evil in places where mass transit it not readily available.  So, if it not a big problem next time it rains, just keeps the lights on for me.

DIY Hail Protection

IMG_1419As my wife and I ran a couple of errands last night, we noticed the bank drive thrus and other related areas with overhangs were filled with parked cars.  It didn’t take too much thinking to realize this was how many drivers attempted to provide hail protection for their cars that would not fit into their garages.  O, if they were working,  they just chose to park strategically.

Fortunately, no hail came along.  Having heard multiple stories recently of cars being fixed after hail damage only to be hail damaged again, it is quite clear hail shows no favoritism.  As I Skyped with a friend this morning, he jokingly suggested a product be created to defeat the affects of hail.  A quick Amazon search showed a hail protection product (out of stock) that performed this task admirably.    After suffering the disappointment of having a low-cost product already existing to prevent hail calamities, ideas for volcano, hurricane and sink hole protection were also rejected.

As I was in the last third of my walk today, I noticed how somebody used landscaping items to build their own hail protection system.  Since we received no hail in our part of Texas, it could be said it worked perfectly.  Somehow a moving blanket and bags of top soil (notice the one bag that slipped off the front) achieved the goal.  Or, the minimum effort on the part of the homeowner gave them enough peace of mind to allow them to sleep well despite the thunder, wind and other possible weather perils the storm front potentially offered.  And, if I knew 6 bags of top soil would guarantee me a great night sleep, I would make that purchase every time!

Fox On The Run

A couple of days ago, I experienced what wildlife in suburbia looks like in Texas.  This is not the stuff I find taking one of my frequent walks.  This is the stuff found while driving the roads that constitute our “stomping grounds”.  While armadillos and opossums are more often seen as roadkill then lumbering about their business,  it is never uncommon to smell the scent of a skunk as we drive to school.  On this day, a fox and turkey both literally crossed our paths.

The fox siting was far from exciting.  With headlights on and no more than a couple of miles from our house, a fox dashed across the road.  (It was too skinny to be a wolf, and I have recently become an expert in recognizing bobcats.)  I was going south, and he crossed from west to east.  He was wearing a bonnet.  I attributed this to him being someones pet rather than him infringing on the wolf and his Goldilocks aspirations.

After a brief period of frustration battling the two mile stretch of the freeway, I start the final stretch of my weekday journey.  To the east of the school, there is a large amount of industry.  (I have seen a powder coater, a pool cleaning company, and a few distribution companies.)  Within a 1/2 miles of the school, this large object launches itself off one of the buildings on the south side of the road.  (The launching might be a slight exaggeration.) As he lands to the adoration of his entourage, he bows and waves.  He gives oncoming drivers his easy smile as he crosses the road in front of us.  As I begin the return leg of my journey, the tom turkey is on the north side of the road.  He has his rear feathers spread while he continues to strut about. Having seen him and his concubines in this location before, I know he has probably been adopted by one of the businesses in the industrial park.

Sometimes, God lets you see a bit of nature just because you need to realize the world will go on when your worries are gone.  Whether it is a “fox on the run” or a turkey on the move, I enjoy the moments when my concerns are put into perspective.

Little Reasons I Hate Driving III

As I began the part of my day commonly referred to as “pick up the girls”, [taxi for teens]. I got a little bored thinking of the routine of it all. (If my actions should ever rise to the level of being on an assassins radar, a routine could get me killed. Fortunately, I am not very accomplished…) As my mental cruise control continued to run unimpeded, I made the right hand turn onto the access-road/entrance-ramp.  I made sure I was in the far left lane so I would not have to think further as I followed the lane directly onto the freeway.  While the highway was on the left, a big box store was on the right(actually quite a few such stores). The parking lots dumped directly onto the access road. It was the hope all drivers entering the access road would exercise common sense as they pulled onto it.

Since there were many right-sided access points to the road sandwiched between the highway and the shopping area, I was fortunate (Really not fortunate) to encounter a truck.  The truck was driven by a young guy who was determined to squeeze onto the entrance ramp between me and the driver ahead of me. Even though he would have to clear 3 lanes of traffic and immediately enter the highway, he saw it as an excellent opportunity to burn off some excessive testosterone….while forcing me to either find mine or deny its presence entirely.   As he pulled into my lane and forced me to brake (I do admit to speeding up to try and keep him from executing his plan), an extended tap of my horn seemed in order.  

As he got up to speed and we entered the freeway, I thought briefly the whole affair had ran its course. This was not the case. The lane we were in was an exit only lane. I immediately switched lanes expecting him to do the same. When he didn’t switch lanes, I made an effort to pass him on my right.  Not surprisingly, I was greeted by his bumper as he whips his truck into my lane and cuts me off.  He briefly slowed which forced me to do the same. Once his appetite for revenge was quenched, he sped up and thought no more of me-at least in a tangible way I could see.   

Apparently, the use of my horn deeply bruised his manly pride.   I will admit to exceeding the advised and posted speed on this access road.  I just continue to be amazed at his need to create a collision course only avoidable by me not wanting to play chicken–he already committed.  When I decide not to allow the construction merging cars to blend into my lane EVEN THOUGH they ignored all signs preparing them for this eventuality, I get flipped off.  As I age and tire of having to compensate for drivers who fail to see “merge” or “yield” or “stop” signs, I have no choice but to drive on.  I am looking forward to the day when the drivers who feel “entitled” to their own private freeway can all fight it out WITHOUT me having to watch their individual temper tantrums.  (Some days I realize I may be having a little tantrum myself….)

Little Reasons I Hate Driving II

Today, I had a different morning driving encounter.  As I was driving the daughters to school, I noticed the traffic on the other side of the highway was not moving too fast.  I resolved to take the access road that runs parallel to the main road when returning back to our home.  It did throw a couple of extra traffic lights into my commute–traffic lights that seem to only let cars trickle through when a flood would most certainly benefit me.  One light was a very light trickle this day.

While patience is not one of my strengths,  I like being trapped on a freeway with non-moving vehicles far less.   As I was within a light or two of clearing the intersection, I continued to look to the right–a turn only lane.  I kept looking for turn signals of people who wanted into my lane-driver’s who wanted to skip the line I waited in and jump ahead quite a few cars–like jumping in front of my car for instance.  I had nearly convinced myself I was going to make it without any intruders even attempting an attack on my lane.  I don’t consider myself an “aggressive” driver, but I will certainly defend my car’s right to its little safety cushion.

So much for maintaining the safety cushion….  As a small gap opened ahead of me–not even big enough for a small vehicle–a truck stuck his nose in.  Since he hadn’t given the obligatory pause to seek my permission and just plowed into the lane, I was not going to give in quietly.  My horn was fully engaged until he was completely absorbed into my lane.  (It must have been a couple of seconds.)  As my pulse was heightened and I was still processing the special bonding I had just shared with this cowboy, he decides to honk his horn for an extended period to commemorate our chance encounter.

Fortunately, no damage to my car or me.  It just was a continuing reminder of why driving is not for the perfectionist.  While others may drive and be oblivious to those sharing the road with them, they do often need to have other drivers help them out when they look up after sending that text or petting the non-distracting dog on their lap.  I may not like having to be friendly with these other drivers, but every time I put the key in the ignition I am taking an oath to try and work with all of those who chose to stick their keys in the ignition, too.

While I dislike the driving process, rarely do I need to read the asterisk related to my oath that mentions how some days my horn is a little more sensitive than others….