The (Beginnings of a) Plan

This was the flyer route that used to
serve our street. It has since been
eliminated, to my great regret.

As mentioned Monday, we're taking our use of the local bus system, and thus our exploration of Austin, to a whole new level. In theory, we're going to ride all of CapMetro's 84 separate routes around Austin. I may have bitten off more than I can chew here.

But actually, it's not as fantastic (or as bleak, depending on which way you look at it) as all that. First off, we've already ridden the buses that come by our apartment from beginning to end multiple times, and will almost certainly be using them to get to the other routes, so we need not count those (although I'll probably write about them, if I can get over that "familiarity breeds contempt" thing).

Since the train can go either direction,
it kind of reminds me of Doctor
Doolittle's pushmi-pullyu.

Of the rest: Some routes have an associated flyer (express) route that covers the same territory: no need to take both. A few routes are short, specific shuttle services that we will only take if we need to. Nine buses are late-night services that come nowhere near my neighbourhood; I love the bus and I love blogging, but not enough to stay out until the wee hours and then have a long walk home just to write about it. Then there are a couple of other maybes, like the express bus that actually leaves town. So, subtracting all the "definitely not"s and "already done"s from the list, I'm left with about 50 definites and five maybes (I get a different number every time I count).

I see a lot of this in my future.

Of course, it wouldn't be a project without rules, so here they are:

1. Always plan ahead.
2. Ask the bus drivers for help when confused. (I'm really bad at this; I'd rather blunder around any day than actually ask for help. Well, no more!)
3. Take a notebook, the camera, and a spare set of batteries on each trip.
4. Find at least two interesting places to stop on each route.
5. Write the blog post right away after a trip so I don't forget everything.

So, the real question today is: What should we call this adventure?