...in which I reveal my newfound fear of salt

Today, I moved out from behind the wheel, switching from driving slugs (move along little sluggies) to being a slug myself. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, see my original post about slugging.

To get to my office, I would drive up 95 to Rosslyn, drop off my slugs by the Metro station, and then head west towards Falls Church. A while ago, I started musing about the feasibility of catching a slug ride to Rosslyn and then taking the Metro to my office. I looked into it some and found that it would actually save me a little money in addition to the other, more obvious, benefits like not having to drive and being able to do something else (read, sleep, etc.) during that time.

So, I ordered a SmarTrip card which allows me to board both the subway and busses and not have to worry about transfers or whatever. It came on Friday, so today, instead of getting in line to pick up slugs, I parked and hopped in the back seat of the first car.

As an aside, it was certainly interesting to see the difference in driving technique between my anonymous driving benefactor and myself. My slug-driving philosophy is to draw as little attention to myself as possible. I set the radio to one station (NPR news, no music) and leave it; I don't fiddle with the air much; and I drive relatively conservatively. I mean, I drive fast, but not aggressively. I thought that the nature of slugging would drive most people to do the same, but my driver today obviously thinks differently. He drove pretty fast and even tailgated here and there. He was constantly changing the radio station from (mostly) bad music to lame morning talk shows all while obsessively adjusting the heater. But he got us to Rosslyn in good time, safe and sound, and I had my mp3 player to drown out the radio, so I don't really have any complaints, just observations.

At Rosslyn, my train was waiting for me as I entered the station, so I hopped on and enjoyed a quick (ten minutes or so) drive out to the West Falls Church Metro stop. There, I disembarked and went out to wait for the bus--my only waiting of the commute and it was only about five minutes. It was kind-of a nervous wait, though, since I wasn't 100% sure that I was at the right stop. But, the bus pulled up, I boarded and off we went. Another ten minutes and I was at my office.

Total travel time was just over an hour, so it was right on par with my normal commute. All in all, it's a great way to commute and I'll definitely continue.