So, this morning I had another Mass Transit Adventure. My first weekday commute!

Scorning the 27 bus, the one that would take me from my house to the park-n-ride as long as I'm standing out there in time to catch one of only three buses that pass by in the morning, I drove myself to the station. (I'm willing to stand outside and wait for a bus but until the RTD website provides me with some information on how I manage the return journey, I must decline to undertake the experiment. "Never go anywhere you can't get home from." That's my motto.)

My trip commenced at 7:10 a.m., when I left the apartment.

Six minutes to the station, three bucks for a round-trip ticket, including all transfers, and two minutes later, I was off! We arrived at Broadway Station at...I don't know what time. (I really must do something about my lunch bag and purse and coffee cup. I need things arranged better if I'm going to be juggling these things through a train and a bus or two in the morning.)

I looked for a "0" bus. I knew I needed a "0" bus. The website, and Bernie, an experienced mass transiter (hey! It's "make up your own words" day!), had been clear on that point.

0 buses abounded. They were scattered around the parking landscape with careless abandon. One of them, I knew, was mine, but which one? I scanned the map provided with great care and discovered that...wait for it...I needed a 0 bus!

Which one, the map coyly refused to divulge.

The various bus stops, although liberally provided with standard Colorado signs (i.e., printed in ten-point type and requiring you to get within five feet before being able to read them, thus rendering them useless to the motoring traveler and of limited use even to the foot passenger) didn't reveal any gathering place for 0 buses on a northbound route. (I found one on a southbound route but decided a ten-mile southbound detour was not going to help me to reach my office approximately 2-1/2 miles north of the station.)

Deductive reasoning was my salvation. (All those hours with Holmes were not wasted.)

Everyone, I reasoned, wants to go downtown. They take public transportation because there's no parking, and what parking does exist is expensive. So, I got on the most popular 0 bus and, sure enough, it trundled out of the parking lot and obediently headed northwards, down Lincoln.

Perusing my surroundings (It pays to be a compulsive reader - I can't pass a sign without reading it.) , I discovered that the bus would not, in fact, stop at 7th Avenue, as the map had indicated. Not without prompting, anyhow. If I wanted to stop at 7th Avenue, I'd have to pull a little cord when the stop was announced.

As we neared our destination, I pulled the little cord and started working my way toward the door. (People are always willing to let you off the bus, especially if they have their eye on your seat.)

7th Avenue to my office building. Two blocks. Three minutes.

I arrived at my desk at 7:54 precisely, making a 44 minute trip.

Had I stopped at Starbucks, a thing I'd imagine I'll do upon occasion, it would have added ten minutes to the trip, but it's still far short of the 90-minutes I'd feared.

So. Mass transit is more convenient than it seemed it was going to be. And now I'm a pro.

I wouldn't do it every day. I still feel that trading a twenty-minute commute for a 45-minute commute is a very minor sort of bargain, but I'll do it two or three days a week.

Now I need to figure out the 27 bus, how to get myself home, and this thing called a "monthly pass."

At least I'm doing something, right? My gift to the planet this holiday season.