Today I had a few places I needed to go, and no time constraints, so I decided to ride my bike. I got Evelyn's backpack, some blankets, a water bottle, and a Clif bar. I tucked Evelyn into the Burley, propped her up with blankets, and gave her a few toys. I left home around 12:30pm.
I was about a half a mile from home when I realized that I hadn't grabbed our ipod. I decided that since I wasn't too far from home, that I would ride back quick and grab it. This added an extra mile to my trip.
Around 1:15 i reached my first stop. This was to drop off an estimate for lawn care at the house that Keith is working on. I stayed for a few minutes to look at the house since it is almost done for the parade in two weeks.
I left there and headed out down Lake Rd. in Altoona to check out a thrift sale I had seen on craigslist. I had to stop at 1:30 to feed Grunter, drank some water, and then we headed on. I got to the garage sale and found a few things. Among which were two books. Of course I would find books. So I added them to the cart. I headed back through Altoona via Hwy KB. By this time, Evelyn was getting irritable. She can't quite sit up by herself, and the bumps in the road were causing her to slowly slouch over to one side and be buried by a blanket. Her toys were now out of reach, and the sun was shining in her eyes. All legitimate reasons for a soon-to-be 5 month old to be upset. Eventually she found her thumb, and the bumps bumped her to sleep.
My next destination was another thrift sale that I had seen on craigslist that was behind Kohls. I headed down Clairemont to London Rd. and then over on Hamilton. When I came to the sale, I was sorely disappointed. I bought nothing. BUT, while en route to this sale, I saw a sign for another sale that appeared to be just a little further down this big hill. I decided to check it out. Much to my dismay, it was a LOT further, and was up another hill. When I finally made it there, once again I was sorely disappointed. The only thing I found was 2 Curious George books for Evelyn. I should have saved my $1 and the 2 miles I biked up and down hills...
Next on my itinerary was to stop by one of our commercial customers
to pick up a fertilizer bill that had been left there. So I headed back up the big hill behind Kohls and guess who woke up from her nap? That's right. And of course the sun was shining right into her eyes and no matter how hard she arched her back, she just couldn't get comfortable. So I took her out of the cart and carried her as I lugged the bike with the cart up the hill. After picking up the bill, I began to ascend another hill (the one behind Panera and BWW). Grunter just was not having a good time at this point, so I decided it was time for a break. We sat down in the shade of a retaining wall and laid down. I ate my Clif bar, changed Evelyn's diaper, and called Kevin. This was around 3:45pm.
After the short rest, I decided to press on. I made it down to Golf Rd. and headed to the west. Of course I went down the side of the road where the sidewalk ends 100 yards down, so I 'quickly' hopped down the curb, and up over the median, and back up to the sidewalk on the other side. Evelyn was thinking about the rest we had taken where she got to lay in the grass and play with Mommy and was wishing we could do that again. Unfortunately for her, we had to keep trucking so that we could get home. She eventually fell asleep to the rhythm of the bumps in the sidewalk.
The last place I was planning to go was the Post Office to check if we had anything in our P.O. Box. As I was heading down Golf Rd. towards State St. I turned right on a road that I assumed would connect to Hamilton so that I could stay out of the busy traffic. Turns out the road I chose did not connect, and added an extra mile to my trip.
We were near to the top of State St. hill when it became time to feed Evelyn. At 4:45pm we stopped in the little park by the fire station and sat in the shade. I drank a little more water (which was very warm by this point) And tried to keep flies and spiders from crawling all over me. As soon as Evelyn was done, we packed up again and headed down the hill. The P.O., as we like to call it, held one letter for us, which is barely worth the trip over there.
Since I was plum out of water, I decided to swing by Daniel & Ellen's house, which is only a few blocks away, to refill my bottle. This added an extra .75 miles to my trip, but was sooo worth the cool water that Ellen poured into my water bottle.
We left there around 5:30pm and were finally headed home. As I headed up the Madison St. hill, it felt as if Evelyn had gained 20lbs. How had the bike cart gotten so heavy? I made it up and flew (more like crawled) past several thrift sale signs. No way was I going to waste any more time stopping at more of those today. I arrived back home around 6:10pm and fell onto the couch. Never had it felt so good to sit down.
Out of curiosity I calculated out the miles I traveled and it came to a grand total of 26.1 miles. I was out for 5 1/2 hours, got a fair amount of sunburn, and definitely broke in my new-to-me bike. Needless to say I promised Grunter that I wouldn't make her go into the bike cart for a few days (not that my backside could take anymore time on a bike seat), and I will be staying home ALL day tomorrow!
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