Griffin has been taking much delight in all things that zoom lately. If there’s a plane in the sky, he’ll find it. If there’s a school bus coming down the road, you can bet he’ll point it out. I decided it was high time we took a day devoted to transportation.

Let me just begin by saying that I have so much respect for folks who, either by choice or not, get their little ones around using public transportation. A car affords a freedom that I’ve been taking for granted, especially in the winter, and I realized this morning as we were rushing to catch the 9:14 bus that life would be a lot more complicated if we didn’t have our own wheels. That being said, I also really enjoyed taking public transportation with Griffin today. I got to engage with him about what we were seeing out the window in a way that I simply can’t in the car, and more importantly, we got to look at each other and interact with other people, which just doesn’t happen in the insulation of our own car.

Anyway, we received two free Metro Transit passes when we moved to St. Paul (sign up for a land line and, in addition to getting lots of unwanted phone calls for people who used to have your number, you get all kinds of free things in the mail!), and with his sudden interest in zooming vehicles, it seemed like the perfect excuse for a field trip. Fortunately, we live just a block from major bus routes, so arranging to get to the airport was as easy as a web search and walking two blocks to the bus stop.

As the bus pulled up, Griffin waved and said, “Hi, Bus!” We got on and he was beaming with excitement. We rode through our neighborhood, down across the frozen Mississippi, and arrived at the Light Rail station. A small wait afforded us the opportunity to explore every nook and cranny of the station, and then the train pulled up! We got to ride through tunnels, past lots of different colored houses and stands of trees, and finally arrived at the airport, where we disembarked. It took a little creativity to find a place where we could watch the planes (post-9/11 has made it very difficult to find a place to watch, I found out), but a couple of trams and moving sidewalks lead us to the perfect place to have a snack and watch planes take off. It was perfect.

We had a great morning together (and it was free!). Griffin got to explore his new passion, and I realized that maybe we need to be taking the bus more often, not just because it’s better for the environment, but because it might just be better for me and Griffin, too.