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Maximizing the Card
Aug. 25th, 2023 08:26 pmA Clipper card VTA tag-in is not a single ride, but two hours of travel. So today I tried to make the most of the tag. Setting my watch to a 2-hour countdown, I tagged into the system, boarded light rail, and rode two stops south to that same 7-Eleven that sold me expired milk. As I expected, they had no interest in making good the bad milk, but I didn't have a lot of options, so I bought more, checking this time to confirm that the expiration date is well into the future. I then went back to the hotel and put the milk into the fridge.
Trip 3 was north two stops to First & Trimble, where there is a Bank of America branch. There, I bought another roll of quarters in case I want to do more laundry during the rest of this trip. Across the street from the bank was a Starbucks, where I used some of the starts I earned during the Winnipeg trip to buy a coffee. Then I bought an shrimp biryani take-out to have later for dinner. This took a while to cook, but I still had more than twenty minutes left on the Clipper tag when I walked to Component station for the fourth and final trip back to the the hotel.
The "stranded" value on the card I originally reported lost hasn't yet shown up on the new card. I have a feeling that despite what the Clipper agent told me, they've mailed a new card to Fernley, so for the rest of this trip, I'll have to keep going back to the VTA vending machine to put more value on the card I bought a few days ago, especially for the trip up to to the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco on Monday, for which I'll need two VTA fares, a Caltrain trip San Jose-San Francisco, and two Muni fares.
Trip 3 was north two stops to First & Trimble, where there is a Bank of America branch. There, I bought another roll of quarters in case I want to do more laundry during the rest of this trip. Across the street from the bank was a Starbucks, where I used some of the starts I earned during the Winnipeg trip to buy a coffee. Then I bought an shrimp biryani take-out to have later for dinner. This took a while to cook, but I still had more than twenty minutes left on the Clipper tag when I walked to Component station for the fourth and final trip back to the the hotel.
The "stranded" value on the card I originally reported lost hasn't yet shown up on the new card. I have a feeling that despite what the Clipper agent told me, they've mailed a new card to Fernley, so for the rest of this trip, I'll have to keep going back to the VTA vending machine to put more value on the card I bought a few days ago, especially for the trip up to to the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco on Monday, for which I'll need two VTA fares, a Caltrain trip San Jose-San Francisco, and two Muni fares.
