Wheels, wheels, wheels.

I am just astonished at how much I drive.

This year I really don't have to go anywhere, which is a shift from where I was twelve months ago. Back then, I was teaching at Far Away Campus, which was - as advertised - far away. It was a 93-mile commute each way, which meant that I was driving nearly 600 miles per week just to get to work and back, never mind all the other stuff you have to do in a town that has no appreciable public transportation system. I was at the gas station three times a week. They knew me there, and we'd sort of grunt at each other in fellowship. It was 5:45am when I walked in, usually, and that was about all we could manage. But it was a routine, and those are nice.

Now that I'm not doing that drive anymore, my driving has decreased. As it should. But even so - I now teach at the campus where Kim teaches, a mere seven miles from home, and I only do that twice a week. My other jobs either require me to go back to that campus, or work from home.

Yet I put over 200 miles a week on my car.

I don't really see how to change that. The girls have to get to and from school, and for long and complicated reasons involving my former status as a Fully Employed Person, the school they're in is not walkable from here. Food has to be purchased from the grocery store. And so on. It's not like I'm taking long Sunday drives about the countryside. The countryside is grey these days, and has never really been all that much of an attraction anyway. Now if it had used book stores, then that would be different. But all it has is nature, and even for nature buffs it can't be all that interesting at highway speeds.

It's a quandary.