Early local traffic jam...

We're lucky enough to live withing walking distance of an elementary school. So we have the Daughter walk to and from school every day - unless it's over +33C or pouring rain (it's more likely that's it above +33C than pouring rain). I like the fact that she gets a sense of walking to places.

But Tuesdays and Thursdays we have to drive her. 1st Grade and Preschool starts within 10 minutes of each other - and even though both are within walking distance - they are too far apart to be able to make it in time to both walking.

So those are the days when we get stuck in the local traffic jam outside the school. The school, a K-5 Elementary school (which means they have classes from Kindergarten to grade 5) is located in the middle of a residential area, with regular houses across the street. Despite the fact that hundreds of kids are to be dropped off and picked up, the street isn't wider or there are no real "drop of" areas - except for school busses (which there hardly are any these days due to the major budget deficit in California which hits public schools especially hard). And Thursdays are extra busy since those are garbage days. Outside each house there are two major garbage cans - one for regular garbage and one for either recycle or garden garbage. They each have to be a couple of feet apart for the garbage truck, meaning that each set of garbage cans blocks one potential parking lot each. And since all the houses around the school comes with three door garages, parking spaces were limited in the first place. Let's just say it's a mess... and this is a small school... try to pass by the high school around 3 pm on a regular weekday...

I'm happy the Daughter is a "late bird" because at least then it's not as busy as with the early birds drop off... and that we only have to do this twice a week...