A note on our windshield, er handlebars!

Nicole and I had the rare privilege of indulging in the luxury of grocery shopping with no kids this morning. Thank you Grandma!

We were out of just about everything so this was a pretty big grocery run for us. Nicole and I had a nice time shopping and figuring out what we'd be eating for the next week or two.

When we came back to our bikes there was business card crammed between the light mount and the bell on my handlebars with a note written on it. The card was from the Program Director of the SFBC and the note read "Awesome. Please send me photos of this parking job (I don't have my camera)...". It made us both smile :)

Anyway, here are the photos :)

First full family grocery run

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 :)

More groceries

Most of my hauling trips are for groceries. It's amazing that this was one of the last reasons why we held on to our car a few years back.

These 4 large bags have nearly $100 in groceries in them and they're so easy to haul. I've been thinking that it might be nice to have some sort of basket on the snapdeck to haul 2-4 more bags but so far this capacity has been more than enough.

Big grocery haul

Last night we realized that not only were we out of dog food, cat litter and cat food but we also needed to go to the grocery store for some staples that we were also out of.

The trailer has 70lbs of cat litter, 35lbs of dog food, and 30lbs of cat food.

The xtracycle has 4 large grocery bags with all kinds of heavy stuff, milk, yogurt, flour, ~$100 worth in all.

And of course ~30lbs of Jula who tagged along merrily although she enjoyed riding there in the trailer a lot more than directly behind me on the way home :)

Pet food haul++

It was that time again. Dog out of food, cats out of food and litter. Time for a big haul!

This load was actually pretty heavy! It was still a breeze to actually pedal home but I could really feel the pull of the off-center load this time.

I used 10 (!!) bungee cords to hold all of this on. After the pet store I hit up the grocery store, the hardware store and the pharmacy just to top off the xtracycle.

Left to right, Full bag of groceries, MC Escher book I found on the way home, baby diapers, box of baby bottles, 35lbs of cat food, new griddle, 45lbs of dog food, 60lbs of cat litter.

Grocery Run

This was a pretty heavy grocery run. Two gallons of milk, large back of whole wheat flour, large bag of brown rice and what you can't see in this photo is the 25 cans of black/pinto/kidney beans that we're putting in our emergency supply kit. The xtracycle swallowed this all with ease and the ride home was smooth as usual :)

Grocery Shopping Epiphany

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.

First Post!

To celebrate the 30 minutes of free time that allowed me to actually start this blog I'm posting this photo of our xtracycle loaded up with groceries that my daughter Jula and I picked up from Safeway earlier today.

Normally we don't shop at Safeway because there are other decent markets in walking distance but we usually make a run to Safeway once a month or so for more bulk-like items. This run was $145 worth of groceries including 2 gallons of milk and lots of canned goods and other heavy stuff. The ride to safeway is incredibly short in comparison to some of the other places we ride to in San Francisco. From our house it's a short jaunt across Golden Gate Park and right between the Academy of Science and the de Young Art Museum. A nice little ride.