My northern vacation on Friday took me to the north side of town on Ann Arbor Transportation Authority Route 2C, one of the new routes that it put into service in January. The destination was Plymouth Green Crossings, where I spent the afternoon working. Here are some notes on what I saw on the journey outbound.

Getting there

11:54 a.m. The Ann Arbor Transportation Authority changed its routing for Route 2, the Plymouth Road buses, to add more service and serve the new Plymouth Road park and ride. I took a route that was new to me, the 2C. It loops around Kerrytown and Central Campus on its way out to Plymouth Road.

If the weather didn't require using a shelter, I could have saved a few minutes of travel time by walking to Huron and Division to catch the route. The 2C is a relatively infrequent route, with hourly service during the day and half hour service at peak times, so it's worth checking the online ride guide to see precisely when to expect it.

On the way

11:54 a.m. Wait, get on. I'm one of six passengers. The shelter did not have a schedule or a list of the routes that service that location, so I had to take it a bit on faith that my bus would be there.

Noon. Four of the six passengers onboard exit at the Michigan League.

12:02 p.m. One passenger exits at C.C. Little. The university is planning a new transit center to replace the bus shelters there. If I had gotten off, I could have taken any of several university routes toward North Campus.

12:03 p.m. I'm the only person left on the bus, and I'll continue to be the only person on the bus until I get off. This isn't surprising, since it's the middle of the day and the beginning of the university's mid-winter break. The Ann Arbor Public Schools and the University of Michigan don't share a common break this year, which makes for complicated planning for parents.

12:05 p.m. The new North Quad is an imposing structure from the Huron Street side, towering over the Rackham Building.

12:06 p.m. The new stop at Division and Huron uses a male voice to announce it, instead of the female voice that is typical for most other stops. I could have chopped 12 minutes off my time if I had walked a few more blocks to pick the bus up there, instead of on Washington Street.

12:08 p.m. At Broadway and Maiden Lane, the vacant field which was to have been the Broadway Village is instead a fenced-in expanse of snow.

12:12 p.m. There are two pedestrian refuge islands on Plymouth Road, put in place after the tragic death of a pedestrian who was crossing near the Michigan Islamic Center in 2003. I note that there are tall, white reflective markers on the posts that hold the signs in the middle of the street, a marker which is not present in the city's similar installation at the Seventh and Washington pedestrian island.

12:15 p.m. The bus makes a turn onto Nixon to serve Plymouth Mall, and then goes around the Nixon roundabout. I can't help thinking of the Ann Arbor Newshawks Winter 2010 discussion of the design for a car-train roundabout at the current location of the East Stadium bridges. My kids love this roundabout, and we go out of our way to use it when heading up to the Traverwood branch library.

12:16 p.m. A mobile home hauler is towing what looks to be a construction trailer northbound on Huron Parkway at Plymouth. Headed where? The sign on the side of the hauler says "Don's" or maybe "Dan's."

12:17 p.m. I get off on Green Road, just south of Plymouth. A gentleman gets on at this stop, wearing dark blue coveralls and carrying two large bags of what looks like might be clothing.

12:20 p.m. Drifts on the sidewalk are a foot high, enough to fully cover the snow that had clearly been plowed to make a path just a few days earlier. The frozen marshland in front of Plymouth Green Crossings has a sign that notes that it's part of the Miller's Creek study.

12:24 p.m. Umi Sushi for lunch. I have the hwe dup bap, a seafood version of the ubiquitous Ann Arbor Korean favorite bi bim bap.

Why I ride the bus

It's wonderful to be able to observe the world as you go by, without needing to pay attention to the road.

It's also wonderful to be a passenger in a 40-foot-long bus with a professional driver at the wheel on a snowy day.

Edward Vielmetti rides the bus for AnnArbor.com. Contact with edwardvielmetti@annarbor.com.