HOV Problems

I noticed that I haven't posted since Monday.  I have been thinking about things to post, as I drive in Houston traffic.  I was totally bummed on Monday at 5:00pm.  The Pinemont HOV(Highly Occupied Vehicle) Park and Ride has been closed!  Ugh! I have been using that Park and Ride for 13 years now and all of the sudden, they decide to close it.  I can't go up on the ramp, to bypass traffic on 290 now!  It will be hard to break my daily habit of going up Bingle every single day.   Yesterday I caught myself continuing on my old route of using the Pinemont Park and Ride HOV.  I finally noticed this blunder, after I went past Long Point.  "Oh, no!"  I told my daughter.  "We cannot go through the HOV anymore!"  So I then went down to the Hempstead Park and Ride and  drove up the ramp. I noticed there was an inordinate amount of cars trekking my way. Way more than usual.  I drove on a little span of the HOV to the West Road Park and Ride and descended.  It worked out okay today. Okay, I guess.  I don't know how much time I actually saved by going down Hempstead. The lights and lines are long, very long.  I have a feeling that this might be my new path home. Oh, the memories of Pinemont!  I drove this route in the mornings, when I worked at an elementary school close by.  I would drop my daughter off at the sitters house.  At that time, in the mornings, you had to have three occupants in the vehicle to use the HOV lane.  In my Ford Ranger sat my my three year old daughter and her baby doll.  Three occupants, right?  One morning, I got pulled over and was fined two hundred dollars because the officer didn't consider a baby doll as being the third occupant.  Needless to say, I suffered through hours and hours of 290 traffic ever since. I continued to use the HOV lane for my journey home because you only had to have two occupants to use it.  The baby doll continued to ride free.


I know that I have to let go of those wonderful memories and make new ones on Hempstead.  We'll see what the next thirteen years bring.  My daughter no longer requires her baby doll.  She has exchanged that poor doll for an ipod and her smart phone.  We will see.

So I guess I did have something to gab about on this Thursday.  HOV blues!  I've got the HOV blues with habits that scream to be broken.  Say goodbye to Pinemont!  Parting is such great sorrow...great, great sorrow!