The Boston Diaries

Wednesday, October 29, 2014

Locks, stalks, and two near accidents

I had put it off as long as I could, but there was nothing more I could do to delay the inenvitable. Pulling me along by the ear, Bunny lead me into the local barber shop.

After the indignity of having my locks shorn, Buny decided to head to the local grocery store to pick up a few essentials. The local grocery store in this part of the country is Ingles, a store the size of Wally World but with the charm of Publix. No wonder Publix hasn't made it this far north. The Ingles had miles of shelves. There was an olive bar a mile long. We live in Boca Raton and do we rate olive bars in our grocery stores? Nay! Nay, I say! How does Brevard, a small town in rural North Carolina, rate an olive bar? And freshly made locally sourced Mozzarella?

But I digress! Bunny got the essentials she so dearly wanted: hot chocolate and fresh flowers for the room.

I must now talk about traffic.

Unlike South Florida, there aren't many thoroughfares in town—in fact, there's only one—Broad Street (also known as US-64, US-276 and Asheville Highway, but unlike Orlando, it's clearly marked at all times). And that's practically the only street with traffic lights. Sure, Main Street (which crosses Broad Street) has a few lights, but the majority of traffic lights are along Broad Street. The rest of the roads in Brevard are primarily two lane roads with a plethora of stop signs.

And the traffic isn't that heavy, even at rush hour.

Okay, given that there are around 33,000 people in the county (compare to nearly 90,000 just in Boca Raton proper) there just isn't much heavy traffic (unlike Alamo, Nevada). But the traffic is annoyingly consistent though—just when you think you can go, suddenly a string of cars show up (my friend Chuck would say they exhibit a Poisson distribution). In retrospect, it's not that surprising that I nearly caused two accidents today. In my defense, the preponderance of trees (real trees, not stalk like palm trees) and hills (hills, people! Hills! Not the unending flatness of South Florida) makes for some challenging sightlines.

In the first near-accident I was trying to drive through an intersection (no traffic light) and narrowly missed being T-boned by a car (oops). The second near-accident happened as I was pulling out of The Red House Inn parking lot and nearly T-boning a passing car (oops).

Self-driving cars can't get here quick enough.