I'm trying to do a No Car October thing. In the past, I've proudly gotten groceries by bike using my trailer. But for the last year and a half, my husband has been doing the house-husband thing and decided that groceries is his purview. I'm not quite ready to relinquish control entirely, so I've been accompanying him on the Saturday morning grocery trips which he does by car. The grocery store is only 1/2 mile away and it seems ridiculous to drive!

Today I told him we'd have to come up with something different. I was willing to fetch the groceries by myself, or let him fetch them, or meet him there (if he drove). He said he was thinking about letting me bring the groceries home in my bike trailer, but walking to the store to meet me. (He doesn't like to bike.) But, he said, he wasn't looking forward to that long of a walk. (I know, it's not a long walk at all! But it is to him!)

I suggested our daughter walk with him, to keep him company, plus there are a couple items she had put on the list and this way she could pick those out herself.

So off they went. After I got the plastic tub strapped to the trailer, the trailer hitched to the bike, the trailer tires aired up, and my bike tires topped off while I had the pump out-- they had already gotten to the grocery store. Of course I had the list, so they just had to wait for me. But, it's only a half mile, so they didn't have to wait long!

We got the groceries and I biked home and they walked home, and I had barely gotten the trailer unloaded and put away when they came in.

After lunch we planned to go bowling. We haven't been to the bowling alley since we moved up here. I knew it was close, but not sure exactly where. We checked it on google maps, it was 0.7 miles. We decided to walk--carrying our Harley Davidson bowling balls and our shoes we'd gotten from a couple leagues we did shortly before we moved up here, but we've never had a chance to use them. Turns out, google was confused about where the bowling alley was. It had us turn right when we should have turned left. The bowling alley is actually 0.4 miles from us, but we walked 2 miles total, carrying the bowling balls the whole way!

My best game today was 135, which for me is really really good.

The last time I did a No Car month, in 2007, my husband ended up driving more because he took care of getting our daughter to swim practice, clarinet lessons, etc. Where we've moved is so small that she can and does bike to all those things now, so I didn't think my No Car month would affect him much. I am really surprised, and happy, that he is choosing to walk more because of it!