Cars really do just make life more complicated

First of all, I am not used to driving this vehicle. For the last year and a half, the only vehicle I have driven has been this baby:

That's the Laredo model, displaying my mad parking skills. Gorgeous, I know.

The dark grey Toyota Corolla. I drove four different cars on my mission and all of them were this.

The vehicle which I currently have as a long-term loan from my grandparents is not a Toyota Corolla (is Corolla really spelled with double l because now I'm wanting to say "co-ro-ya" and I know that's not right). It's a red land boat--well, no, it's an old Buic and a lovely car, and I'm sincerely grateful to be allowed to use it right now, but it's slow to turn, slow to break, and drives nothing like a Toyota. My friend that I dropped off in Wellsville shortly before my meeting with Wellsville's finest couldn't stop laughing at me because I kept turning the windshield wipers on by accident the entire drive up. Also, the lights stay on for about three minutes after the car has been vacated and locked, and I don't know whether or not I should be concerned.

Anyway, tonight was finally a night when my landlady would be home and so would I, so I drove out to get my parking sticker tonight. Sadly, about halfway there from Logan my GPS gave up on me, and I ended up driving around the wrong town. It worked out alright, thanks to the very logical way that Utah streets are numbered--had I been in Texas I guess I would've had to find my way back out to the main road to buy a map, but I didn't get too horribly lost before I got back on the right track.

So it turns out that parking a car in Logan is about as complicated as can be.
You see, the city has some kind of regulation that prohibits cars parked on the streets between 1AM and 6AM, but there aren't actually enough parking spaces for all the tenants in this apartment, so if you are unlucky enough to not get a spot then the plan is that you scooch into a really awkward space that doesn't permit any of the other cars to leave, and then get up at 6AM the next morning to move the car out into the street. (Frankly, if it comes to that I might go park in the church parking lot again, even if it means walking back in the cold.) Also, you are required to move your car every 96 hours, or else you'll get booted. And you can get booted for parking crooked. The crooked parking could be problematic, I have a bit of a reputation for my lousy parking jobs. As for the 96 hours rule, it might tell you something about my car usage that I didn't touch my car for 8 days and only used it tonight so that I could get a parking sticker; this might turn into one of those ringamaroles where every four days I move the car to a different parking space in the same parking lot just to avoid trouble.

Regardless, I managed to get back in one piece. I was a little concerned I'd come back to a full parking lot and, with comedic inevitability, leave my car in the church parking lot again--but for once the late-night lifestyle of the common college student interposed in my favor, and the parking lot at 8PM was more than half empty. So for now, at least, my transportation problems are under control.

Though walking to class at 7 this morning with wet hair (don't do that! Bad idea!) made me about wish I used my car more often. My hair froze into solid chunks that clicked against each other, and every time the wind blew I got a brain freeze. And I thought I had it bad when it got as low as 38 in Laredo. Oh well, at least there's hot chocolate.