Invitation I Can't Accept

Since I began driving, perhaps 12 years ago, I have ranged the county far and wide. Without driving on freeways though, going beyond the county, to L.A., San Diego, and even Long Beach, is not really feasible. When I lived in the Northeast and Southeast, driving an hour was seen to be a really long haul. Here, it is an everyday jaunt to the market or yoga class. Things are spread out, as they are not back there. If one were unwilling to go that far, s/he'd never go anywhere at all! But since freeways are not in the picture for me (too fast, too many lanes, too much going on for me to feel I can safely manage it), I cannot accept the invitation to take part in an open reading in Long Beach this evening. It would take over 2 hours each way for me to get there on surface streets. That is just too much to be driving late at night, when these things inevitably let out. And it feels rude to get up and leave partway through the reading, when I have had a chance to read, but others have not. Though I would be willing to drive to someone's house and get a ride from there, if I knew that person fairly well, that hasn't emerged as a possibility. People live too far away from me, too close to that far northern part of the county to make much of a difference anyhow. And on a weeknight, people want to be in early, so they wouldn't go from this part of the county anyhow. Oh well. I hate to turn down invitations, which might lead to a featured reading sometime, there's not much I can do about it!