I drove on the parkway

First of all, saying "I drove on the parkway" sounds, to me, odd. Why do we drive on the parkway? Shouldn't we drive on the driveway (and thus park on the, you know, parkway)?

Second, I like driving. What I don't like is not knowing where I'm going, and thinking I'm probably lost.

Yesterday, I drove from school to a friend's house. I had never been to said friend's house. In fact, I had never been to the town she lives in.

But I figured I'd mapquest directions from school to her house, then ask my mom if the directions looked good. My mom said not to use those mapquest directions, and told me a better way to go.

She said to follow this one street "all the way". I originally figured "all the way" would mean I'd be on that street for about, oh, 10-15 minutes. Oh no. It was way more than that. It felt like at least half an hour. On top of that, it was raining on and off the whole time (when I left school, it was pouring, but after that it was on and off). I drove through like 3 towns I'd never even visited before. It was crazy. And oh yeah, I had the temperature in the car set to something like 72 or 75 degrees (Fahrenheit, that is), and all of a sudden, it felt like it was about 100 degrees. I've got no clue why- all of a sudden, it just got really, really hot.

So eventually, I got to my friend's house.

On the way home, I drove on the parkway (hence the title of this blog). Now, I've had my license for over two months (experienced driver, I know) but I've never actually driven on the parkway. I've never had a reason to. I drive to school every day, I drive downtown a few times a week (for dance class, etc.), sometimes I drive to the mall or to the movie theater. But I'd never actually had to drive on the parkway before, so yea, I was kinda nervous.

When I was getting off the parkway, I was freaking out that I'd taken the wrong exit, but I didn't. And eventually I got home okay.

Something I realized though: driving on the parkway isn't actually that hard. It's actually much easier than driving through 3 suburban towns you've never been to before. Yea, you have to drive faster (~65mph vs. ~30/35mph), but people aren't trying to turn all the time, pedestrians aren't crossing not at the cross walk, you don't have stop lights or stop signs every 10 yards, and plus the parkway is pretty much straight (or at least much straighter than most suburban streets).