Laundry!
After spending a week biking around Yosemite we were way behind on laundry, like 8 loads behind!
Instead of slogging through it one load at a time we decided to load it all up on the bikes and haul it to the laundromat.
My bike with a few loads...
...and Nicole's bike with a few more
Of course the kids went with us too :)
After it was all done I picked it up by myself with Nicole's bike and the trailer. That's a lot of clothes!
Jula helped hold this ikea chair on the back of the bike. Somehow my ratchet strap went missing from my xtracycle bag so this was a 100% bungee affair. Of course Jula hung on to the chair too. Found it on craigslist and hauled it 1.5mi home ;)
Finally we can all go to the store together. Since my son Tenzin was born 7 months ago Nicole and I have not been to the grocery store together, something that we enjoy doing together. Since Tenzin seems to be enjoying riding in the trailer so much we decided that we'd make the trek to Safeway to stock up on things that we can't get or are too expensive at our local markets.
We made several changes to the path that we would normally take getting to the store, mostly to avoid badly potholed roads so that Tenzin's ride wasn't too bumpy. These included a bit of very low-speed sidewalk riding and a bit of a wide walking path through the park. The walking path has a "no skating no bicycles" sign at the entry way but I justify riding there because a) we are moving very slowly so as to not jar Tenzin in the trailer and b) the city of San Francisco is clearly negligent in taking care of South Drive from Lincoln to Stow Lake, particularly from Lincoln to the Tea Garden. There are patches on patches on patches and still big scary potholes. It's a major conduit to the park for cars which is certainly the cause of the wear but it's a terrible experience for cyclists. Sadly from the Inner Sunset there aren't any other good entries into the park for cyclists. So in a way riding on the walking path is my act of civil disobedience in the matter and it's really all about Tenzin's safety.
Anyway, I digress! We had a lovely time shopping together and playing with the kids in the store. Hooray for more family togetherness!
Here's our full family rig as it stands now. Jula rode with Nicole and I pulled Tenzin in the trailer. He seems to really love riding along with us and it was oh-so-awesome for us all to go to the store together!
We had 7 bags of groceries, I hauled 4 and Nicole took the rest. The mile back home across Golden Gate Park was easy-peasy :)
One of my coworkers is buying my extra xtracycle setup and now that it's finally cleaned up and removed from it's previous host bike I needed to haul it in to the office.
The tapestry helped keep my brand new snapdeck safe and pretty :)
And we're here!
A friend and I loaded up our drums aand a didgeridoo and rode off in to golden gate park to play music.
We eventaully settled on playing in one of the tunnels near the deYoung museum, great acoustics!
We wanted to get some firewood for the weekend while some really good friends were in town staying with us. I thought this would be a lot more awkward to haul but it was very easy and only needed one strap to hold it on :)
Loaded up for yet another Inner Sunset PARK(ing) day!
This time we had a nice spread of food to attract the passers-by.
And come they did! the PARK(ing) space was full of people all day long!
We were even treated to some music!
A good time was had by all!
To top it all off, Adam was given this awesome pumpkin which he hauled home on his bike just like this :)
A handful of stuff had been laying around the office that I had been meaning to take home. Kevin motivated me to get it all out of there by threatening to throw it out :) So you know me, I'll take on any chance to haul a bunch of stuff. The big spool is now a table in our backyard, the wheels are going to have their rust scrubbed from them and will hopefully roll again on the extremely well-weathered bike frame, maybe as a road bike for Nicole. :)
Nicole finally wore out the stroller that we found on the street 2 years ago. Lots of off-road walks in Golden Gate Park will do that :)
I found this awesome deal on craigslist, a moderately priced, pneumatic-tired, well built stroller that should be the last one we have to buy (coincidently, it's the first one we've ever paid for).
The catch was that it was 8 miles away and over at least one pretty big hill. The xtracycle handled the whole affair like a champ and I learned a few things about strapping cargo to the snapdeck :)
While on my way back from our local bike shop I ran across this pile of furniture. My daughter has been in need of a new dresser for some time now and this fine all-wood dresser will do quite nicely! It does need a coat of paint and maybe some new knobs but FREE! Woo!
The best part is that the xtracycle is so stable that I was able to strap the dresser on with only 2 bungee cords. I couldn't believe how stable is was for the ~1 mile ride home.
Jula and I found this nice piece of plywood on the way to the grocery store and strapped it right on to the xtracycle with no problems. We got lots of funny looks from folks in the parking lot. I rather enjoy those funny looks I must say :) Hopefully in the next few weeks we're going to make some bird houses out of it to attract some birds to our fledgling backyard garden.
Today was the semi-monthly plant sale at the nursery run by the Golden Gate Park staff. The nursery is inside the boundry of the park itself and serves as an area for the staff to grow plants that are used in the park. As a fundraising measure they hold a plant sale twice a month and have some really great deals on a nice assortment of plants. Jula and I went with the intention of getting some more plants for our lightwell between our kitchen and office. It's nearly a useless space in that it's not very large and you have to climb through a window to get out to it but it's grat for plants that do well in partial sun. The lightwell is 2 stories deep so anything that needs full sun just won't fare well. The folks at the nursery were really helpful in suggesting plants that would work well in this space. We also bought a few plants to go in the small backyard that we share with the other 2 apartment units in our building.
Of course we took the xtracycle to pick up all these plants! Jula had fun helping me decide what to get and the nursery staff were tickled to talk to her about what they had to offer.
When I started looking at some of the larger plants that they had, one of the staff members started giving me a funny look and asked "Do you have a car?" I replied, "No, I'll just pack them all on to my bike." He just shook his head in disbelief. After I easily managed to strap all 5 plants, including the 2 largest ones on to the xtracycle they all started marveling at such a set up. One of the staff reminisced that our bike reminded her of large cargo bikes she had seen when she lived in China. Nice! During the loading process we got quite a lot of attention from nearly everyone else that showed up to the plant sale. Most people just marveled that so much could be loaded on to a bike and some actually inquired about what my mutant looking bike was all about. I'd say it was a great day for cargo-bike-advocacy :)
I was a bit worried that I'd get out on the road and one of the plants would go flying or rip itself out of it's pot but nothing at all negative happened. The load was easy to carry and the plants did fine. We managed to get home just in time for lunch (Thanks Honey!)
After lunch Jula and I moved some of our new plants out into the lightwell. The lightwell is now well on it's way to being the small jungle that I've been envisioning. Thanks Park Nursery!
Last night we were expecting a guest over for dinner and at the last minute decided that we'd make some pizza. Last minute decisions like that mean that we're not going to be making our own dough of course so I headed out for a solo trip to the grocery store. When you have two little kids sometimes a solo errand trip is a well-appreciated break. Even better when that errand involves a short ride and hauling some cargo home! I hopped on the xtracycle and headed over to Safeway, mostly because none of our small local markets carry pre-made pizza crust. I managed to make the whole run even more worthwhile by picking up a bunch of other necessities.
While shopping and carefully examining product ingredient lists I had a small epiphany. Here I am being hyper-picky about the quality and origin of the ingredients and produce that I'm shopping for but we don't have any qualms about eating out when we're feeling too lazy to cook at home. The epiphany was that with very few exceptions, none of the places we tend to eat out are making their food with organic or locally grown ingredients. Yet another motivation for cooking at home! File this under the "Duh!" catagory.
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