139 again

No real surprise there.  I've been exercising -- 4 days last week and 2 this week so far -- and getting around on foot and by bike as much as possible; in fact, last Friday we were home all day and Mary, Alexander and I all started to get restless for a bike ride.  We ended up going to a homeschool picnic we didn't really want to go to just to get out of the house and moving for a mile.  (Uphill both ways, I might add -- but mostly uphill the first way.  It's my least favorite ride.)  And today I offered the kids the option of staying home with me exercising here, and they both protested -- they wanted to take the three-miles-each-way ride to the gym!  I've created a monster (two, actually!)!

It also struck me that if I'm biking to the gym three times a week I'll be getting a minimum of 18 miles a week in, and usually more like 20-25 with other trips -- so I'll make up at least one tank of gas pretty quickly, and I make up a full gallon and then some every week, considering these are all short trips in my van.  In the month of June I didn't have to refill at all -- we filled up just before Memorial Day and not again.  I'm at about a quarter of a tank now, 200 miles later.  Daniel usually drives a lot more short trips in a month than I do, because he has to get to work, but he cut out his work trips almost entirely.  Unfortunately, he had two trips to the airport last month, one of them in West Virginia, so he still needed to buy gas at least once or twice.  But our total gas expenditures last month were WAY down.

I see a lot of people around town on bicycles and I know the bike racks everywhere are more full than they used to be.  But I'm amazed at how many people I know aren't cutting back.  One friend I have lives in walking distance of the Christiansburg library, where we had a meeting one evening, and I really had to wrestle with myself to admit that it needed to be a drive for me and I'm a LOT farther away.  But she drove her minivan, and she didn't even have her kids with her.  And when we showed up at the park a mile away from home on our bicycles, everyone exclaimed and seemed impressed -- but we rode to this park even before we pledged not to use the car as much, and we even tried walking there once a couple of years ago (but Mom was with us, and unfortunately she injured herself on a loose patch of gravel just a few blocks from our house -- it's not a good walk because there are several stretches without sidewalks, and the road can be busy).  Why WOULD we drive when it's only a mile, we have our bikes, and we'll be home before dark?  I guess as a society we've really gotten that lazy.  Sigh.

This month I'm going to be burning through a tank of gas in a week.  In the last week of July the kids have a day camp in Roanoke at the zoo.  Some resources we just don't have in Blacksburg.  Hmm... wonder how much the SmartRide would cost, and whether it would take us as far as the zoo?  I suspect for four travelers it would cost more than the car.  Oh, well.