It was a beautiful day in central Indiana and that was good, because we had to do some walking. Being downtown and not being up-to-date on parking was a bummer. I decided that with all the traffic, I would just go with the flow and park in a garage I could get to without scooting across lanes of traffic. It turned out to be a 10 minute walk from where we wanted to go and I took my ticket with me because it had the address of the building on it.

That would have been good thinking, but the official address of the garage, which was on a corner, was not that from which we entered and exited. On the way back in the late afternoon, I guided Alison over to the Soldiers and Sailors Monument on the Circle. Instead of just following my mental map, I decided to be cute and plugged the address into the GPS. You would have thought this would not have been a problem, but it directed me to walk in a different direction and then we got not lost, but out-of-our-way as I attempted to impose my vision of the street I wanted on the street they were giving me. Of course, they were two different streets – I had not paid attention when we exited to what street we were on, assuming that it was the address of the lot.

This probably was not as stupid as it sounds because it had been awhile since I had been in a big city parking structure and was distracted by discovering one had to pay at a machine when you returned. You then had 20 minutes to get to your car, settle in after locating your keys and exit the garage. Since no one appeared to be on duty anywhere and since it was rush hour, I had to hope I wouldn’t reveal my hick tendencies in leaving.

And to leave, you have to get out of the car to insert the ticket which you used in one machine to pay, to put it in another to activate the gate. Fortunately, I had kept the ticket in my hot little hand. Then, because it was rush hour, a sort of police guy was directing traffic at the exit. It was Go, Go, Go . . . and so I went, fastening my seat belt somewhere in the middle lane of New York Street.

On our walk to our destination and our round-the-barn way back, I examined the parking meters and saw why they looked odd. Each one was a small box, labelled with a number that you were to input in a nearby ATM-type device. Okay, this is obviously for locals because we saw no signs indicating how long you could park and so forth – locals, or other big city folks who understand these new-fangled things. The thought of parallel parking at an unknown meter device made the parking garage option – wherever it was – more appealing. I will be studying up on urban parking meters now; I seem to get more old fogey by the day.

Oh, by the way, my boots set off the alarm in the security walk-through thingie. No big deal, but I did ask and found out that where we were was the only way in for the two block long building; you could go out any door, you just had to come in this one. I suppose it was money-saving not to have two security scanning entrances. I turned to Alison and commanded, “Do not step out of any door unless the building is on fire.” This was especially important because construction was going on and it appeared some doors opened onto areas temporarily surrounded by chain link fencing. It could have been ugly.

I’m rambling all over the place here and now I’m going back to the part after we left the garage: Not only was it rush hour downtown, but we then were in rush hour on the Interstates. Traffic was often at a stand still, but at times everyone was moving at least 70 mph in areas marked 55 mph . . . and all the lanes were full. About an hour after clearing the city, we stopped at a Taco Bell for a nice relaxing Iced Tea with Mango – and maybe a little something from the cravings menu.

Of course, this is tremendously boring to anyone whose eyes are on it, but typing it out may clear my head and prevent nightmares of one-way, dead-end streets with tolls.