It's a Battlefield, Brother

Navigating Horlick      

I thought I had it made this year.  After years and years of school drop offs and pick ups having had our kids at Catholic schools either without bus service, or not on the route, all four of my kiddos are in public schools and have bus assignments. Yee haw!

...not so fast, sista!  Without getting into it, I am once again playing taxi driver. This year, our first year, to and from Horlick.  So far, I haven't killed anyone. Thank goodness!  Read More...

I actually schedule picking my kids up from school 10 minutes after the 2:38pm dismissal bell.  While one daughter (who has never used her assigned locker, crammed way up on floor 3's southeast corner) is waiting outside, coatless a minute after the bell...the other one?  Well, let's just say she gets plugged up in the hallway and my timing is quite impeccable.  It never worked well for me to plug up the driveway waiting for daughter #2, so again, my 10 minute delay allows me to efficiently (however, not necessarily safely) pick 'em up.

Now, I've been around the block, again, having to do drop offs/pick ups for 13 years, since #1 was in preschool.  EVERY school has it's traffic issues....shall I name names? Gifford, John Paul II Academy, Stephen Bull....this should get a couple of head nods!

Horlick High School has 2184 students, according to my daughter ("at least at the beginning of the year", she adds).  Imagine the flood of careless, invincible teens that flow out of the brick institution onto Rapids Drive oblivious of traffic?  Part of my 10 minute delay is to drive through during a lower tide.  Though it's still quite the nightmare.

I decided to scoop the loop and have my daughter take a couple of snapshots...

Navigating Horlick (pic 1) 2:52pm
Westbound on Rapids

This is nothing ^^^^^^though you wouldn't catch me attempting to snap a photo minutes earlier, my initial round.  I'd kill someone.  Kids just step out everywhere and walk in front of cars driving down Rapids Drive and Mt. Pleasant.

As I continued westbound, passing the school driveway entrance that I had just entered 5 minutes earlier and continuing on a different route home, though not in unfamiliar territory, I came upon a footbridge...

...one I have passed under hundreds of times (not usually right before or after school).

Notice something?  Never noticed something? Look closer...

There is no one on that bridge.  There is never anyone on that bridge.  It's the bridge to nowhere.  Quite useless if its intent was to allow safe passage for students from the south side of the street (where the school is situated, a block southeast of the footbridge) to the northside.  Where the footbridge is located is not in an area that kids are crossing the streets.

Not all is lost though.  Look closer...

...The Downtown Racine Holiday Parade is this weekend!  Makes a great marketing tool.  Perhaps I should slap a JAK sign up there, eh?

Drive safely, momma....it's a battlefield out there.

Go to Just Add Kids website:

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