Hardly LOL!!

CAM - when I was 15 I spent part of the summer on a farm/ranch in Wyoming. One afternoon the mother asked me to go pick up a couple of the young-uns who were with friends about 3 miles away. They had a stick shift wagon. When I told her I had never driven before her only response was "You'll learn", and sent me down the road alone. Different world from the DC burbs!

Yes, David... when my Dad told me to drive the last few miles home, I doubt there was another car within 5 miles of us. LOL Not exactly a tough area to learn to drive a stick. When I taught my son, we lived in area with a fair amount of traffic. After the first time out and several impatient drivers honking horns at green lights, I made a sign for the back of the car... "Teenager Learning To Use Clutch - Honking Doesn't Help". Seemed to work.

Great sign, Cam

Mercy I wish someone would've made one of those for me. After stalling thru 3 lights, I begged my dad to switch with me. Without missing a beat he said 'nope, I believe you can do it!' Thought I would die....but did it I did with the FOURTH green light. SMH

That's good parenting too, Chantell... your father had confidence in you (or faked it)... either way, nice job by Dad !

LOL may have been a lil of both. My dad is an amazing man - I am truly blessed as is your son it sounds like!

Thank you, Chantell, that's very sweet.

Ha ha ha. I learned to drive in Indonesia, a jeep. There were and are no automatic cars there. But my Dad still did not want me to drive his "sensitive" Fiat 1100, so I never used my driver's license and I used my bicycle for a long long time and later my scooter (Vespa)--only very long. In Germany I was on public transportation.After I immigrated to the US, I wanted to get my MLS when I started working in a library. There was a bus going to George Mason, but no transportation to go home. So I had to learn to drive and buy a car. I bought a VW411 automatic (gee how easy to drive a car!), when I just put on my permanent license plate on the car, I went to mushroom hunting in a park near Triangle with a co-worker. As a new driver, I made sure that I was driving not faster than 55 miles per hour, and driving in the middle lane. A new trailer driver, who just bought his RV in Florida, pulled by his big car was in a hurry, was going to pass me on my left side, then decided that the right side would be better, because it had a bigger shoulder. Because he changed lanes too quickly, his trailer jackknived and he was coming back to me, and in my little experience, instead of going to the right, I went to the left lane, ending driving on the shoulder, but not far enough from his car, he hit me alongside the right part of the car, fortunately not head on, my friend came out of the car and was jumping up and down on the street screaming "stupid idiot"--quite an adventure. I was just trembling! My car was totaled. Bought another car, same VW 411, but 1 year newer. In 1991 I finally had to give up my beloved 411, because oil was leaking and heater did not work. I gave it away to charity so young people could take it apart and put together again (that was what they said) and bought my Volvo manual shift. I got stuck on Leesburg Pike, on a hill, at the light. Terrible. Motor kept dying, because I did not give enough gas----I still have my 25 old car! --unfortunately it has rear-wheel drive, so I do not drive when it snows or icy whether is predicted. I hit black ice once, and I slid to someone's SUV back another time (I was on the first gear!), no damage on the other car, but mime was damaged. So no more driving when the weather forecast is snow or icy.

Egads, what a lot of driving adventures, Francine!!!

Chantel, I hear you about stalling through green lights. I was driving my Pop's '02 Jetta TDI and probably stalled it through 8 lights. No one behind me honked the horn, they were very gracious even though there was a very long line of cars behind me. It was barely a hill too but you know how it is being flustered. Unfortunately for me, my Pop was not very encouraging and instead was telling me how he couldn't believe I couldn't do it. He also would not take over driving. It was pretty bad but I made it through and have been driving a stick car for 13 years now. I taught Darcy too, nearly 12 years ago. One of our first nights out together, we double dated with my college roommate and his girlfriend. Darcy said she knew how to drive stick so I gave her the keys and she was the DD. She drove home from the bar and probably stalled the car 12 times getting out of the parking lot to the light in the shopping center. Here I find out years later she was just trying to impress me by telling me she could drive stick and her only experience prior was a couple times on her friend's Honda. What a sweetheart

So did we nail down a date for the swap and what town does Catmint live in? I was excited to hear it was at Gita's before reading down because Gita is only 1.5 hours away.

Sequioa...

Catmint aka Robin lives in Rockville, MD

There is 'sticky' thread (marked to stay at the top of the list at that we are using for the swap schedule information.

Didn't see it, thanks Rick!

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This post will appear in several places so we catch everyone.

I have set up the swap tool for the 2016 Fall Swap. The swap is being hosted by @Catmint20906 aka Robin in the Rockville/Silver Spring, MD area. While the swap is set up, you can't register until Monday, 11-Jul-2016. I think we're all going to have enough going on over the holiday. But... that doesn't mean we can't all start pulling a list together.

Once registration opens, you will be able to work on your actual swap list. For all of those not familiar with how the swap tool works, please feel free to ask once registration opens. It may look and sound confusing at first, but it will make things a lot easier. I will post some basic instructions as the time approaches.

Dates:
- Registration Start: Monday, 11-Jul-2016
- 'Dibs' start: Monday, 01-Aug-2016
- 'Dibs' end: Friday, 09-Sep-2016

This gives everyone 5 weeks to prep and dib. Of course, people will be able to register at any time during the 8-week period.

In addition to the actual swap tool, we will also set up threads for things such as want lists and the all important food. (That really is the reason we have these after all. Plants are just a believable excuse )

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