A woman traveling solo
I travel solo to and from the yooperland and The Planet Ann Arbor quite frequently, at least during the good driving months. I am done done done with snow driving to the yooperland.
I don’t do plane travel very well. This is kind of crazy since my dad was a WWII pilot and took us up in light planes when I was a kid. But that’s how it is.
I went to visit Little Cat Z in her then home in Berkeley/San Francisco when she first moved out there. The morning I was to fly out, her car broke down, which meant I had to navigate the BART, etc., to get to her.
Not knowing what the hell I was doing, I said something like, it’s okay, I’ll figger it out and I did. She did give me some good instructions.
The GG dropped me off at Daytwa Metro. I breezed through security and got a seat by the gate. It had been 30 years since I had flown but I was seated next to a wonderful couple who talked most of the time we were ascending. That helped me.
I did many gyrations navigating through SFO to get to the BART but I managed it. At one point I was standing next to some “young” business type guys in a parking structure. We all thought we were at a BART stop but something didn’t feel right to me. I spied a certain sign and redirected these businessmen to follow me and baggy old bag that I was, they did. We got to an elevator, and then (I lost them at this point) I was on some kind of airport driverless transport and FINALLY I got to a place to buy a BART PASS. From there it was pretty easy. I was soooo proud of myself for doing all of that alone.
That’s Little Cat Z and Jess’s apartment in Berkeley. It doesn’t look comfortable in the pic but it was. Even with ants in the kitchen and a slug in the bathroom. At one point an apartment neighbor was caterwauling with his mom about “don’t make me do that”. It turned out that he didn’t want to go to church, if I’m remembering accurately. I can relate.
This post is inspired by my blahggy friend Margaret’s post about traveling all over the world solo, sometimes not knowing the language. She is more adventurous than I am about travel. I like the term “adventurous” better than “brave”, at least for traveling.
March 25th, 2026 at 9:50 pm
I’ve had those same challenges finding public transportation (mainly in NYC) although not about flying which I’ve done a lot and generally enjoy. I probably wouldn’t currently though. 🙁
March 26th, 2026 at 8:04 am
Ah, that brought back memories of being in bed on a Sunday morning praying that my parents would leave me alone so I didn’t have to go to Sunday school. Playing possum is the term I think. It rarely worked. Not sure when I realized that they felt the same way and they trudged to church for our benefit mostly. By the time I was 13 I was wiser and recall challenging a Sunday school teacher with some bit of 13-year-old logic that earned me a dirty look but as I recall was the beginning of the end of Sunday school for me. By 18 or so I became intrigued by the glitz and glamour of Catholicism and went to some big fancy cathedral in DC to test it out. That went nowhere and was possibly inspired by a Catholic boyfriend. We forced our two kids to go to a Unitarian church and it was a good experience for one of them, the extra shy one who benefited from the social aspects. But now here we all are, committed agnostics with a touch of Buddhism in me to take off the rough edges. I could use some buffing of those edges right about now when my fears, my realistic fears, about nuclear attacks are at their highest since the Cuban Missile Crisis years. And it’s not very Buddhist of me to want to punch trump voters in the face for what they’ve inflicted on us. Oh, I’d like to do even more to trump himself but it’s more than a punch. Early morning venting!
March 26th, 2026 at 4:39 pm
I need to apologize for saying I want to punch trump voters in my earlier comment. I can’t sink to his level. But I am terrified about the future of our country and fear is making me say things I later regret.