Scootles, I know it's been awhile since you posted about needing to learn to drive, but I hope this is an idea for ya. Do the high schools where you live have driver's ed? I didn't learn to drive until I was in college, when I signed up to take driver's ed at the high school as summer school. Most of the students with me were older folks, too. It was pretty inexpensive, too, compared to a private driving school. Perhaps that's something you can look into.
Until I moved to WA 4 years ago, I had always lived in the South, where public transportation is either nonexistant or not very convenient. I did use the bus to get to work back when I lived in Orlando, but even then I had an hour to kill downtown every morning because the bus from my part of town got into the terminal about 5 minutes after the bus I needed to transfer to left. And it only ran hourly...
That's why I adore visiting places like NYC! A car's actually a pain to own there, but who needs one? You can get anywhere by subway or bus or your own two feet. It's the most pedestrian-friendly place I've ever been.
I've gone a few years now and then without a car, and the hostility and insensitivity of many drivers toward pedestrians is scary. And the lights at crosswalks never seem to stay green long enough to cross the street before the cars start coming at ya again.
We do have two cars, but one is my DH's pet project, a
1966 Chevy Suburban Carryall that he's hotrodding. Not exactly a daily driver yet; we've been working on it about a year, a bit at a time. Our everyday car is a '93 Chevy conversion van we just got a couple of weeks ago. We had hoped to finally get a car built in the current century
, but this one is really nice for an older ride. We took my DH's 3 lovely DDs to a local highlands games in it this past weekend, and it was the quietest, most peaceful ride we've ever had with them. They each had their own seat, and there's a second stereo in the rear with headset jacks near each seat, so they could listen to their music while we old folks listened to our bagpipe music up front. Gotta love it! DH and I are hoping to be able to take a trip cross-country in it later this year, to visit my mother in FL and my brother's family in TN. Now, that should be quite a journey!
