Day 26 and 27: It's all downhill from here

Friday was a good day for riding and I made it home in 40 minutes. That has not happened since the first week of starting this journey mainly because the wind has always been right in my face. This time it was with me and there was a huge difference. Now, the only disadvantage about being as fast as lightning is that I had a greater chance of falling or even getting hit by a car. I almost got hit by a girl on a cellphone and another incident almost occurred with a woman not seeing me while trying to make an early right on red. I yelled at both of them and they looked scared. In fact, the first girl was in a blue Toyota and I ended up staying with her car for three miles! This is how fast I was going and how slow traffic was on Friday.

I guess I was trying to rush home because Ashley was sick and went home from work early that day. It gave me a bad attitude the whole time and I was not going to put up with any cars. Since I started this journey I sometimes feel like there are just machines zooming by me with robots driving them. I forget that there are human beings in there (all I see if cell phones, make up, and stress). Bicycles and walkers have the right of way, but we have lost this privilege in the car dominated society we live in. I have been reading this book called "No Impact Man" (which I discussed earlier) that has made some good points about cars and Americans.

1. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 17 percent of the average American's income goes toward the costs of owning and running a car.

2. Every ten minutes we spend commuting, means 10 percent less connection with our friends and communities (unless you carpool)

3. Even if you don't own a car, research shows that the more vehicular traffic there is on the street where we live, the fewer friends we have, because the traffic causes us to spend less time hanging out in our neighborhood.

It talks more about the effect that cars have on pollution and greenhouse gases in our atmosphere, but I am not here to talk about those things. All I can say is the only thing cars really have on bicycles and walking is when they are needed for long trips. When needing to get to work, the store, the movies or anywhere around town a bicycle is perfect. You don't need to worry about going to the gym, just kill two birds with one stone (go where you need to go and lose weight at the same time). From spending time in Asia, everyone uses there feet or bikes to get from A to B and they are healthier and more energetic.

Saturday has been an interesting day and there is something that I must admit to everyone. I still feel shame from what I did but it was for a good reason. Next weekend I will be traveling to Norman, OK to see the Dirty Projectors play at the Norman Music Festival. Not only will I get to see an awesome show I will get to spend some great time with Blayze himself. In order to get to Norman I will need my car. I definitely considered riding my bike there, but since it is past the 30 days and since it is over 90 miles away I decided to drive. I went out to look at m car the other day and see if it was ready to make the journey since it has not been driven in a couple weeks. It looked great except for my back tire...it was completely flat. I called AAA today to com and air it up so Ashley could take me to Goodyear and get it fixed. Well, since Ashley was super sick today she told me no! I could not believe it at first because earlier this morning she had found the courage to drive us to the Tulsa Farmer's Market on Cherry Street! But, now the moment that I needed her she was in bed! I am sure all of you think I am jerk for saying these things, but I did not want to give up after so many days. I had gone three weeks without driving a car and now I was at the last weekend! I tossed it around and decided what needed to be done. I got in my car and went to Goodyear to get the tire fixed.

I know that people reading this blog might be shocked, but I want to respect my wife while she is trying to recover from being sick. I decided that I needed to make up for all this driving by going a couple of miles on my wife's bike for groceries, but it did not stop raining all day. So, I did not get out on the bike once. Today was a great day to have a car. The picture of the bicycle was actually my set up for grocery shopping. The gas I used getting around town and then putting two new tires on the car cost a whole lot of dough. I am not saying that I am going to divorce my car forever but you can not doubt the high costs of maintaining a car.

I am going to continue to go without a car for the next few days because it is only day 28 tomorrow. Although I drove today, I do not feel wrong for doing it. My life would be much worse if I had tried to force my sick wife out of bed and into my car. I know I made the best decision for my well being and hers.