Maybe it is possible to shake the city out of the girl, or at least shake it up a bit. It's been over nine years since I moved to a small town. I never thought I'd live anywhere smaller than the medium-sized city I grew up in but I think I've actually grown accustomed to the pace here.
I still spend a lot of time in the province's two largest cities. I have to be patient sometimes and at times I'm astounded at the rate of growth, but I still love them. Most of my visits are on weekends and evenings and I'm able to get around fairly well.
Last week I had a meeting in the centre of Regina on Friday. With construction, one-way streets and no sense of the parking situation it took me nearly 45 minutes to get to the office about three blocks from my hotel. The parking spot I did find was more than six blocks from the meeting and the machine wouldn't take my credit card so I had to buy a shorter term ticket, find an open bank where I could get more loonies and toonies and then return to the lot to pay again for a longer stretch so I wouldn't be ticketed.
I'm glad I gave myself a little extra time and that the rain had stopped shortly before. At the end of the day I'm sure I found my vehicle again only because I had written the street names on my wrist.
The one-way streets and construction had me going in circles again at the end of the day and it made me wish I had a bus pass to take me all the way home.
I love the busyness of walking in downtown areas during the day but driving is a different story.
I know many people who think it is inconvenient for people to live in small communities and commute to a larger centre for work. If one drives a car the easiest part of the journey is probably the minutes on the highway without the sounds of honking , the bus exhaust, the pedestrians to dodge and the confusing mazes.
I remember leading a visiting group of vehicles out of our small town a few years ago. I told them I'd take them out quickly on the route with the least amount of traffic. These were big city people and they smiled and joked about the lack of traffic.
It is all relative and it is important for me to be patient in traffic even if my traffic jam is just one vehicle going far below the speed limit for a few blocks. It could be far worse.
