Well the good news is that we finally were able to fill up the car with gas this morning. Daniel got up at 6 a.m. and rode his motorcycle around town until he found a gas station with gas. He then got in line and called me to come join the frenzy so that we could have full tanks in both of our vehicles (the car has been empty since last Wednesday). I had to wait 20 minutes to fill up, it would have been a longer wait but Daniel called to let me know that I could bypass the line I was in to get in a shorter line.
Being the wonderful guy that Daniel is, he also took the time to push the car of a woman, whose battery was dead, out of the craziness. After both Daniel and I had filled up our tanks, we were able to jump start this woman's car for her.
Now on to grocery shopping with a bicycle. After having to survive from Wednesday night to Sunday morning sans a car, Daniel and I decided to try an experiment to see how well we can function not driving a car at all.
Even though we have gasoline now, we want to test our limits as to how much of our lives can be lived without a car. This experiment will not include me driving to Rock Hill, SC for class - unless I get comfortable on the motorcycle again by myself. This means that for now, the two nights a week I teach will be the only time we will use the car.
For our first major test, we realized that we needed a week's worth of groceries. So Daniel and I got our bike's out. Daniel put his trunk with panniers on his bike rack while I added a pannier to mine as well as carried my 40 liter, internal frame pack on my back.
We got to WalMart and Daniel sat outside with our bikes and packs so that we would not have to waste time locking everything up while I went inside and did our weekly shopping. I also purchased a bottle of water and a candy bar for us to split before we rode home. $70 worth of groceries later, I was back outside helping Daniel transfer all of our groceries to our various packs. Then we were on our way again.
We definitely received some strange looks, but we are not wasting gas and we are getting our exercise at the same time. I did have one guy hit on me - probably b/c of the spandex biking capris I was wearing. The entire ride, round trip, was 8 miles and took a total of 2 hours. With a car, grocery shopping on a Sunday can take me 1.5-2 hours.
Being the wonderful guy that Daniel is, he also took the time to push the car of a woman, whose battery was dead, out of the craziness. After both Daniel and I had filled up our tanks, we were able to jump start this woman's car for her.
Now on to grocery shopping with a bicycle. After having to survive from Wednesday night to Sunday morning sans a car, Daniel and I decided to try an experiment to see how well we can function not driving a car at all.
Even though we have gasoline now, we want to test our limits as to how much of our lives can be lived without a car. This experiment will not include me driving to Rock Hill, SC for class - unless I get comfortable on the motorcycle again by myself. This means that for now, the two nights a week I teach will be the only time we will use the car.
For our first major test, we realized that we needed a week's worth of groceries. So Daniel and I got our bike's out. Daniel put his trunk with panniers on his bike rack while I added a pannier to mine as well as carried my 40 liter, internal frame pack on my back.
We got to WalMart and Daniel sat outside with our bikes and packs so that we would not have to waste time locking everything up while I went inside and did our weekly shopping. I also purchased a bottle of water and a candy bar for us to split before we rode home. $70 worth of groceries later, I was back outside helping Daniel transfer all of our groceries to our various packs. Then we were on our way again.
We definitely received some strange looks, but we are not wasting gas and we are getting our exercise at the same time. I did have one guy hit on me - probably b/c of the spandex biking capris I was wearing. The entire ride, round trip, was 8 miles and took a total of 2 hours. With a car, grocery shopping on a Sunday can take me 1.5-2 hours.
Me carrying my internal frame pack and pannier full of groceries.
All of the packs, full of groceries, once we got back home.
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