Weekend driving, blah!

These guys were ready for a nice long ride!

A bummer in the car-free attempt. Although it is convenient to have my parents' car at pretty easy access, sometimes it's still too easy to fall back into familiar patterns, especially when the going gets a bit tougher. We had a birthday party to go to across town, 10 miles or so away. Jose was going to come along and he had never ridden out that way and was understandably nervous. The weather was wet and there is a section of the route that is not fun to ride along. I had done it before and was confident that it was fine but I wanted to make him comfortable and we instead just rode the three miles to my folks' and picked up their car. 

I was immediately bummed. We ended up being late to the party because we took our time getting ready, thinking that we were driving so we'd get there quickly. We would have actually arrived earlier if we had ridden. Then, we got stuck in traffic on the freeway, crawling along as people weaved in and around at dangerous speeds for the weather conditions. I will admit that it was nice to arrive at the party dry and not sweaty but we also arrived tense from driving and not exhilarated from biking. I just kept thinking "I wish we had biked." Especially on the way home, after eating so much yummy party food and seeing the clouds open up to the most beautiful fall day. 

I guess it's a good reminder of why we decided to go car-free. 

A beautiful fall morning.

Discussing the crows that were out.

The trailer test run with random things going to my mom. Wanted to make sure it would work before sticking the kids in.

Jose did take the car to his parents' house in the Bay Area to celebrate his mom's birthday. It would have cost us $200 to take the whole family on Amtrak and since we haven't quite bounced back from "selling" the car, that wasn't an available option. The boys and I ended up staying home to avoid the cold that was going around their home. 

This morning, we did get a great ride to church with the BionX Breezer-trailer set up. That was amazing! At level 1, the BionX power basically offsets the weight of the BionX system. At level 2, the BionX was comfortably negating the weight of the trailer. At level 3, I was zipping along at 15 mph as if I wasn't weighed down by the human cargo trailing behind. I didn't actually try out level 4 because I decided I was comfortable with 15 mph as my max with the trailer, especially on city streets. It also drained the battery fairly quickly. I'm estimating a range of about 15 miles with the BionX and trailer. I do think that if the weight was distributed better, maybe sometime like a bakfiets or Mundo, the BionX would perform better, not that I'm complaining at all! 

At church, we ran into our friends who had ridden in as well! It's so fun to see other awesome family riders out and about. We had a great ride together on our way back, getting extra time to chat instead of getting in our cars and going separate ways (even if it's in the same direction). 

I wish I had had more energy to get out one more time today, but instead I was beat. The kids slept for about a half hour in the trailer after we got home. I think we all needed a quiet day in. 

Cutie kids nibbling cookie bribery.

I thought they were about to wake up but nope. They were pretty cozy in there. Gave me enough time to clean the chicken coop!