We had a great time on the Day-After-Thanksgiving ride from Pike Place Market to Gasworks Park.
Val shot us an email about the first ride of the year. Meet at noon at Greenlake near the basketball court and baseball diamond on the east side of the lake.
We’re planning to be there. This time I don’t think I’ll be able to keep Tim from loading up the bikes with everything we might need to keep us warm and fed. We have the space on the Xtras so why not? Live a little.
– Anne
Posted in alternative transportation, BIG Loads, bikes, extravehicular activities, seattle
Tagged bicycle, bikes, cargobikes, Greenlake, seattle, xtracycle
You’ve probably seen about a zillion Christmas-Trees-on-Xtracycle photos already this year. I mean, everybody is doin’ it.
Said photos are usually cute and harmless and kind of fun to look at. For our sake, let’s hope that’s true because the CarFreeDay team is making it a zillion and two right here. Continue reading
Posted in alternative transportation, BIG Loads, extravehicular activities, kids, seattle, shopping, sustainability, weather
Tagged , bigload, bike, Christmas 2007, Christmas Tree, Christmas Tree Ride, kids, seattle, xtracycle
We parked in the load zone at preschool the other day and our four year old was very concerned we’d been there for longer than 30 minutes. He really didn’t want to get a ticket.
– Anne
Posted in alternative transportation, bikes, extravehicular activities, kids, neighborhoods, School, seattle, traffic
I’m into stats. So I thought I’d do a wrap up of our family transportation stats for the month of November:
Total Number of Car Trips – 5
Number of Miles Driven – 25.5
Number of car-free days – 25
Longest car-free streak for November – 12 days
Family Record (set in September) – 22 days
Number of trips to the gas station – 0
Rainy Days in Seattle (According to the National Weather Service) – 25
Longest Ride with kids – Riding to the Pike Place Market and back the day after Thanksgiving – 12.8 miles
Most memorable ride – To the Arboretum via the center for Urban Horticulture with the kids. Good times. Lots of bird nests spotted.
Ride with the worst weather – Picking up the 4 year old at preschool in a torrential downpour. I couldn’t wait out the rain in my warm, dry house; it was time to get him so I had to go.
Last gas purchase – 8/31/2007
– Anne
Posted in alternative transportation, bikes, extravehicular activities, seattle, weather
Tagged , , alternative transportation, bikes, seattle, stats
I have this love-hate relationship with the bus. I love the idea of mass transit but hate Metro‘s implementation. I get impatient with all the stops. Why can’t we make people walk just a little farther, cut out half the stops and and speed the whole route up? Continue reading
Posted in alternative transportation, bikes, extravehicular activities, mass transit, seattle
Tagged , bikes, bus, mass transit, metro, seattle, xtracycle
Today was my 29th (wink wink) birthday. I had a great day. Our babysitter was out of town so we rolled with it as parents often do – dinner and a movie with the kids. I’m not big on fancy, in fact I’m a pretty cheap date, so it was perfectly fine with me. We rode to Dick’s for some nutritious burgers and shakes before the movie. Parked the bikes right up front and ate our grub like the rest of them – in our carsbikes. After our nutritious meal, we were on to the movie theatre for an early showing of Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium. Good flick for kids and adults – Natalie Portman is so cute and the movie was about a magical toystore, how could you not like it. After the movie, we went outside and bundled up for the ride home. Lots of amused looks from the folks waiting in line to pay for parking – ha.
Good times.
– Anne
Posted in alternative transportation, bikes, dates, extravehicular activities, kids, seattle
Tagged bikes, burger joints, datenight, seattle, xtracycle
I discovered Alan Durning’s series last year. It was my inspiration for trying to be less car dependent. When I first started reading it, I told myself, ” I could never do that.” (Insert all excuses here). But I was truly inspired. If their family of five can live without a car, I can certainly live with driving less.
We started small – eliminating un-necessary trips here and there, declaring carfree days once or twice a week, doing all errands on one day to eliminate daily short trips etc.
Then we got the Xtracycles. What a truly revolutionary invention. They have changed everything for us. All kid-and-stuff-hauling related excuses evaporated when they were up and running. Now – we barely drive. Maybe once every 2 weeks. Probably less. We’re hooked – wouldn’t go back. It’s so easy and fun.
Give Alan Durning’s series a read when you have a chance.
– Anne
This post has nothing to do with bikes. It does, however, have something to do with carfree days which was the original purpose of this blog.
When a preschooler isn’t in school, you have to find something to do to avoid hearing “I’m bored” all day long. This isn’t hard – we have a lot of fun stuff to do in our neighborhood. Neither Tim nor I are big fans of playgrounds (shhh – don’t tell our children) So, we try to find other, non-playgroundish things to do. Looking for insects, digging in the dirt, playing in the creek near our house, picking up leaves – all highly entertaining. And when you have a four year old boy, seeking out big construction equipment is a must.
My son and I enjoyed a carfree day watching a crew prepare to lift a house in our neighborhood. It was a beautiful day so I enjoyed it as well! We have to return to the site today to watch the actual lifting….ah the things we do for our children.
– Anne
Posted in extravehicular activities, kids, neighborhoods, seattle
Tagged activities, construction, kids
For the past few years, Tim and I have silently observed Buy Nothing Day. I was very excited to read of an event (via Bike Hugger) encouraging active participation. Aarons Bicycle Repair, Seattle’s leading Xtracycle dealer, is leading a HOT STUFF Cargo Bike Ride to remind us all to get out of stores and onto our bikes.
I know we won’t be seeing Tim’s shopaholic sister there, but how about you? Does your city have an event? Tell us about it!
– Anne
It was a lovely Friday night for some Xtracycle errands followed by drinks and dinner at Flowers on the Ave. The combination of my captive subject, our bikelights, and the camera’s second-curtain flash settings were hard to resist.
-Tim
Posted in dates, extravehicular activities, seattle, xtracycle
Tagged car-free, carfreedates, date night, dates, seattle, U-district, xtracycle
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
We LOVE to share our work, but the number of commercial sites using our photos (of our kids!) without permission, and/or non-commercial sites not following Creative Commons use and attribution terms is getting out of hand.
If you have questions about: allowed use of our content, need help understanding the Creative Commons link and license terms, want permission for another type of use, or need a quick refresher on the etiquette of photo use-and-reuse, please contact Carfreedays.com. Seriously, just ask. We're happy to help.
Anne & Tim
Tim King
Anne
cfdgirl
Tim K
Car Free Days 