Bicycle = Transportation

Due to some stress and the fact that my job is making me miserable, I haven't felt like doing anything lately. I haven't wanted to ride, post, clean the house. Okay, the cleaning the house part is normal and has nothing to do with my stress level, but the fact that I have mostly been unable to get myself on a bike and I have had several good ideas for posts but I haven't been able to make myself actually write them has been pretty disturbing. I'm not going to go into why work is so bad right now. Everyone around me is probably sick of hearing about it and I'm sick of complaining about it. Suffice it to say eight years is more than enough time at that place and I need to get out as soon as it's feasible.

At any rate, we spent some time down at the Great Lakes Folk Festival this weekend. It's always a good time. We enjoy hanging out there, eating the food and listening to good music. It also gives Chris great fodder for photographs. It was his idea to get out our cruisers to head down there since it's not far away and there's really no place to park unless you want to take the shuttle bus. Friday night was really my first time riding my cruiser since Chris bought it for me as a wedding present.

I broke all my own rules while riding my cruiser—no helmet, flip flops, etc.—but I quickly got over my discomfort because it was so much fun. (The coaster brakes took a little longer to get used to.) It was just great to be able to get on a bike and ride a short distance without having to put on bike shorts, helmet, gloves, bike shoes. We ended up riding our cruisers down there and back home two days in a row. Our local bike club even provides a free, guarded bike parking corral, so we didn't even have to worry about locking our bikes up or carting them around with us after we got there. We got a lot of compliments on our bikes, too, since they're so cool looking.

For reasons I won't go into too much (someone else counts on me for a ride, I have to leave for meetings sometimes during the day, I have to dress up, I go home for lunch almost every day), I don't commute by bike. I only live about two miles from my work though, and every time I see a bike commuter (and they're everywhere now) I feel incredibly guilty about the fact that I'm not out there. My jaunts this weekend started me thinking, though, and I think I can at least commute on Fridays and a few other days here and there. It won't save much gas, but it'll be one less car on the road at least one day a week, and it's a start.