One thing I never really had to deal with in my adult life until we moved to Austin was a commute.
In Odessa we lived close to both the clinic and UTPB, and when I worked at Dell I lived down the road from the office. Way back when was in high school I did make the long drive across down to OHS every day, but by the time I had finished college (in an apartment that was the first and last buss stop to A&M) I had completely forgotten about communing.
So when we moved here it was a bit of a shock to me to have to figure out the best way to manage a commute from Leander. The big highway was always backed up, and even though eventually I found a way to mitigate that some with exit hopping at first all I wanted to do was find different paths to work. I would look at the map and mentally map out all the obvious routes. And the first month after we moved I would randomly take different paths home hoping to find the best one. Some were far worse and I would get home way late, some put me in a school zone or taking a left a a light that was always backed or would require me to cut across traffic in a crazy move to get into the right lane.
Eventually I worked out my first "shortcut" where I went behind a golf course and down Spicewood Springs. After years of living in Odessa this path was great for my mental health, as it was full of trees and fields and generally pretty scenery. Somedays a heavy rain would block off the path but for a while it became me preferred method of getting to work or home from it.
Yet despite all my efforts early on it proved to be too hard to optimize the route quickly. It took me years of trying side roads or playing with highway exits to get to my current optimal route that even today I know can probably still be improved. The real improvements came when I learned to go under 360 instead of on it, or when I learned how to cut through some neighborhoods to avoid some lights that no one else avoids. But all of these happened more than a year in by accident, which means it has been a five year process to get the route home I have today.
The end effect of all these efforts are twofold- 1. I know most of north Austin pretty well as I cut through all of it and 2. I can easily slip back into old mindsets and frankly simpler days simply by taking the less optimized but more pretty routes I started with back in 2013. Simply by driving down Spicewood I can remember what it was like when I first got the job, or what it was like moving here, or what it was like having a 24/7 comedy station in Austin.
In Odessa we lived close to both the clinic and UTPB, and when I worked at Dell I lived down the road from the office. Way back when was in high school I did make the long drive across down to OHS every day, but by the time I had finished college (in an apartment that was the first and last buss stop to A&M) I had completely forgotten about communing.
So when we moved here it was a bit of a shock to me to have to figure out the best way to manage a commute from Leander. The big highway was always backed up, and even though eventually I found a way to mitigate that some with exit hopping at first all I wanted to do was find different paths to work. I would look at the map and mentally map out all the obvious routes. And the first month after we moved I would randomly take different paths home hoping to find the best one. Some were far worse and I would get home way late, some put me in a school zone or taking a left a a light that was always backed or would require me to cut across traffic in a crazy move to get into the right lane.
Eventually I worked out my first "shortcut" where I went behind a golf course and down Spicewood Springs. After years of living in Odessa this path was great for my mental health, as it was full of trees and fields and generally pretty scenery. Somedays a heavy rain would block off the path but for a while it became me preferred method of getting to work or home from it.
Yet despite all my efforts early on it proved to be too hard to optimize the route quickly. It took me years of trying side roads or playing with highway exits to get to my current optimal route that even today I know can probably still be improved. The real improvements came when I learned to go under 360 instead of on it, or when I learned how to cut through some neighborhoods to avoid some lights that no one else avoids. But all of these happened more than a year in by accident, which means it has been a five year process to get the route home I have today.
The end effect of all these efforts are twofold- 1. I know most of north Austin pretty well as I cut through all of it and 2. I can easily slip back into old mindsets and frankly simpler days simply by taking the less optimized but more pretty routes I started with back in 2013. Simply by driving down Spicewood I can remember what it was like when I first got the job, or what it was like moving here, or what it was like having a 24/7 comedy station in Austin.
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