Rethinking the Bike

I bought a bike this summer. The idea was that I could get some exercise and save a little gas (and thus in some small way help save the world). I knew I hadn't ridden a bike in about 10 years, maybe more, but I thought I would remember. I test drove the bike and felt like I could handle it. I got the helmet, a mirror, pads, a lock, even a bag so I can carry library books or groceries. I figured maybe I could ride to work once a week or something.
I quickly discovered that I am not currently strong enough to ride my bike to work. I made it one day (after a spill that prompted me to buy the elbow pads), but there is a decent sized hill on the main road outside our subdivision and I can't get enough speed to really be safe, especially at rush hour. So the goal was to build up some muscle so I could ride to work. My second problem was that I get to spend very little time with the girls, and I didn't want to interrupt that time to go on a bike ride alone. (I am a little faster than they are on their bikes). I can't ride at night because Kentucky's only bike law seems to be that you need to have a light to ride at night. Therefor, I haven't had much practice with the bike.
So after having the bike for almost two months I went to the store on Tuesday and while on the hill in our neighborhood I was barely able to pass the little old lady out for a morning stroll.
I had gone to the store to pick up a prescription. Of course, the pharmacy doesn't open until nine, so I had to wait to go, which meant I was a bit pressed for time for getting to work. I took my car keys, because my house key is attached and threw it in the bag with my wallet (which has a spare car key) and the key for the bike lock. So it took me a while to sort through all the keys to lock up my bike while I was at the store. On the way home, I was pondering how much gas I might have "saved" thus far. It would be generous to say that I might have travelled 12 miles on my bike. That's about half a gallon of gas, or (again, generously) $1.50. [Incidentally I had to pay 75cents to put air in my tires while I was at the store].
Then I got home. I couldn't find my keys. I had the bike lock keys. I had my wallet with my car key, but no house key. I didn't have time to ride my bike back to the store, so I drove. (At least I found the keys quickly) So much for saving gas today. Then I drove to work. Of course, I completely forgot that the ample parking at 8 am is non existent at 10am. So I drove around the block several times trying to find a spot. I think I thus negated the remainder of my $1.50 savings and any corresponding environmental benefit. And I still can barely make it up the hill.

We spent last Saturday at the Louisville Zoo. Peter decided he liked it much better than the Cincinnati Zoo. I think that was in part because parking was easier. In fact, it was free! It was a warm day, but we all had a good time. I think it is a mark of a good zoo to have lots of things for kids to climb on. So, you can see the girls on a Rhino here. They also climbed on statues of an elephant and a tortoise.

What I thought was great was that they had "zoo keeper's notes" which told something about the specific animals we were looking at, not just the species. One told about a bird that had just hatched earlier this summer and was not nearly full grown. Another (sadly) talked about how one of the animals had an incurable form of cancer, which was why it was so thin. We also learned that the bald eagles at the zoo did not have to be netted in because they both had arrived after they had a wing permanently damaged by a gunshot.

The girls, of course, enjoyed themselves. Sammy was fascinated watching the meercats eat live crickets. (We saw some small birds join them at feeding time, and learned that if they didn't hustle out of there with their lunch the meercats might eat the birds instead!). She was also a fan of the penguins and danced for them a bit. It took us a while to find the penguins. For obvious reasons, they are kept indoors. However, we were walking through the building for a while and every room was a sauna! The one other air conditioned room though was for the orangutan. Charlotte was entranced! She just watched and watched for a long time, and finally we had to pull her away to go find the penguins!

While we were watching the jaguar, Charlotte noted that "Diego has a jaguar". (Diego is a cartoon, cousin of Dora). I pointed out that his jaguar was a baby and that grown-up jaguars do not make good pets. When I explained why, Charlotte looked terrified, and clung tightly to me, so I told her that's why there was a fence between us. For the next several days Charlie would somberly announce to us, "Grown up Jaguars are not good pets. That's why they have a fence. The jaguar stays on that side and we stay on this side."

When we went into the gift shop, of course they had stuffed animals of practically every animal at the zoo. Charlotte came across a pile of frogs that looked much like the stuffed one we got here when she mastered potty training. "This is just like Dagio" she announced. (Incidentally, the frog is named after the term, "Adagio" she hears on Little Einsteins. I guess some cartoons are educational!) Then she asked, "Can I carry it around with me?" Sure. "Another one, can I carry this one too?" I guess so. "A tiger tiger! Can I carry this too?" At some point I had to put a stop to it, so I think I limited her to carrying four stuffed animals. Of course she wanted to take one home, but her room is packed with stuffed animals she never plays with! But we did find a magnet with her name on it (for some reason, Charlotte is really hard to find).

The girls also picked out some post cards. After Charlie Dot carefully taped hers into her notebook at home, she was "writing" as she talked about the pictures. At one point we overheard her dictate "And we saw two tiger tiger roars, which is my favorite animal."

On a side note, I just have to brag a little bit. A couple of weeks ago I was talking to Sammy, who had not yet started first grade. We were talking about people sharing something, I don't remember what. I asked he off-handedly, "So if there were ten of them and 5 people, how many would each person have?" She paused to think, but never lifted her fingers to count. In about 15 seconds she asserted "two." The kid intuits division. :)

We went to Brown County Indiana to celebrate our 10th Anniversary. (Thanks to Mimi for watching the girls). We were only there for a couple of days. Nashville is a small tourist trap kind of town with lots of art shops and candy stores. We bought some homemade ice cream at Miller's and had Pizza at the Harvest Moon. I forgot how good bread sticks and cheese can be! On Saturday we went to the state park where there were several hiking trails. They were a lot longer than we thought! When we finished hiking we went horseback riding. This was Peter's first time on a horse. His horse got startled early on in the trip and ran up a hill a short ways! Yikes! After recovering the rest of the trip went well. The horses liked to trot to catch up, which is quite bouncy.

Saturday evening we went back into Nashville for dinner at the "Holy Cow" Restaurant. (It tastes so good it should be a sin... or so they claim) We had a cheesecake shortchange for dessert which was awesome! Then we went to a musical theatre performance set up like an old radio show performing Hollywood Musical classics. What fun!

The weather was perfect all weekend for being outdoors. Never too warm or too humid, particularly in the park. Though we were walking around a bit, we were mostly in the shade, so it all balanced out. It didn't rain at all (unlike today!).

More pictures appear below.

The top is a view from our patio room. Beautiful! The middle two are from when we went horsback riding (my rear still hurts!). The bottom is from a "look out" on our hike in the State Park

Sammy on Horseback

Sammy LOVED Horseback camp. She even learned to trot a little. She was dissapointed that someone had to lead the horse, but the camp was only a week long!