Text 7031, 95 rader
Skriven 2007-10-04 13:27:09 av Roy Witt (1:397/22)
   Kommentar till text 7000 av Ward Dossche (2:292/854)
Ärende: St. Bernardus Abt 12
============================
04 Oct 07 09:05, Ward Dossche wrote to Carol Shenkenberger:

 CS>WD>> That's not really an issue. My daughter and I were on a
 CS>WD>> really tight schedule anyway ... more tight than I expected
 CS>WD>> because I _again_ misjudged the driving distances.

 CS>> Chuckle!  I can see that one.  No matter how often you drive in the
 CS>> USA, your mind doubtless thinks 'KM' in the background then you try
 CS>> to adjust too far the other way.

 WD> The KM to mile conversion is not really an issue.

Oh, but it is.

 WD> Most states have a speed-limit of around 60

Wrong. Most states have a speed limit of 70 or more, unless you're
traveling two-lane state and county highways. Those are usually limited to
55mph.

 WD> so I always think in terms of "1hr driving = 60 miles". It's just the
 WD> notion of "size".

That's right. A mile is a lot longer than a kilometer. Think of it in
terms of sausage vs weiners.

 WD> This past summer my daughter and I ended up in Wilmington NC because
 WD> I wanted to see the battleship USS North Carolina. I figured that
 WD> would take me an hour ... but it took me over 3 hours and I had
 WD> visited only the main deck and 2 gun turrets.

At what mph?

 WD> Then we continued on to Myrtle Beach because my daughter is on a
 WD> self-imposed mission to visit all the "David & Goliath" clothing
 WD> stores world-wide. I figured maybe 10-15 minutes ... she was in there
 WD> for 2 hours. And Myrtle Beach is a tourist trap, but an enjoyable
 WD> tourist trap.

 WD> The plan was to arrive in Orlando that evening, dine somewhere, take
 WD> a dip in the hotel-pool before retiring. Well, these 2 activities
 WD> mentioned above took a 5hr chunk out of my time-planning; so we
 WD> arrived in Orlando after 1am instead of ... well much earlier.

 WD> The same happened when driving to Key West, too many interesting
 WD> sights en-route, too many stops, late arrival ... but we dined and
 WD> swam. Still need to write about all that as Roy asked me to.

 CS>> Oh, an expected but humorous culture shock item here.  The folks at
 CS>> the hotel cant believe we *walked* to the market and then *walked*
 CS>> to the car dealer to get a car.  The car dealer place was amazed to
 CS>> see us *carrying* backpacks with some essentials (almost lost the
 CS>> loan over it til they did the credit check and I'm A1+ levels). The
 CS>> supermarket was only 2 miles away and the car place, a mere 1/2 mile
 CS>> back in the other direction but we dint bother to unload the
 CS>> groceries at the motel on the way back to the car place.

 WD> We do most of our local shopping and errands walking or biking.
 WD> Usually a bike is faster and easier to handle in the traffic here. It
 WD> takes up to 15 minutes to drive through the main street here with all
 WD> the traffic lights, on a bike you can handle that in 4 minutes.

 CS>> We found a bicycle repair place and explained the Cultech that's
 CS>> enroute.  The guy said for a chance to get his hands on one, he'll
 CS>> do the maintenance for free if he can park it in the window for a
 CS>> week.

 WD> And you got heavy-duty locks for it as well I hope? Remember, you're
 WD> in the US now. Theft-rate of such bikes here is enormous.

 CS>> The guy is a little nutty in the same way we became.  Use of cars
 CS>> should be for when the distance is too far for other means.

 WD> Absolutely. The mam of my girlfriend (ex-girlfriend of course) in the
 WD> US in the 70-ies worked in an office about 300 meter from their house
 WD> ... 330 yards? You guessed it: she took the car. When I mentioned how
 WD> much we walked and did on foot, she stared in disbelief. When that
 WD> girl came to visit in Belgium and saw all the walking and biking it
 WD> may have been a reason why our thing went nowhere ... ;-)

 WD> Take care,

 WD>  \%/@rd

 WD> --- D'Bridge 2.86
 WD>  * Origin: Many Glacier -o=O=o- Preserve - Protect - Conserve
 WD> (2:292/854)

                R\%/itt


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