Guilt & Groceries

After a long mountain bike ride the other day that was frankly a little too rocky and a little too long, I was laying down resting when the idea was put forth that my wife could get some things done she wanted to do, and I could take our daughter grocery shopping.  Sounded fine to me.  Until I heard those fatal words:

'We can take our bike!'.  You see, as the photo shows, we've recently acquired a Trail-a-bike, and Lucy really loves it.  So, since I've been brainwashing (I'm kidding, I think) my child into Velocentric thinking ever since she was born, I was well aware that there was no way I could say no to this request.  Backpacks were found, Mom made a list, and off we went.

Thankfully, the big hill was on the way TO the store.  Unfortunately so was a major avenue.  Not a big problem, I simply told her to hold on tight and since the crosswalk light took forever, had plenty of time to tell her why.  We got to the store, did our shopping (passing on the heavier items like multiple bottles of Pepsi) and headed home.

It had gotten dark, but this was not a major impediment either.  There were wide sidewalks the whole way home.  And it was this ride that really drove home why we did this in the first place.

We heard Spring Peeper frogs for the first time on the ride home.  Had they been out before?  I don't know, but we didn't hear them in the car.  But we did on the bike.  It took me until we were almost home to realize that this was the first day of 2012 that I'd had shorts on.  And it was the day after we'd 'sprung ahead' on the clock.

We were happy to see Mom when we got home (how long did she stand and wait?).  And my guess is, with the darkness, she was happy to see us as well.

What did I teach my daughter?  I'm not sure- but I will say that while we were locking the bike up, she said 'Cars will kill the earth- look at ALL THESE CARS!'.  I'm not sure she got that from me, and I'm not sure where she got it from, exactly.  But I don't disagree with her.