An announcementI'm taking this little bloggy-blog in a new direction. Instead of being a bike-centric blog by a guy living in Oregon, it'll be a blog by a bike-centric guy living
like a gypsy. I mean, the bike-thing can only go so far
(unless of course you happen to be BikePortland or Cyclelicious...).
Nikki just started 15 months of six-week rotations, and so rather than sit around without her, we've decided to tag along.
Her first rotation is up at
Fort Lewis and began last week. It kinda sucks, but during this first rotation, we'll only see her on weekends. Her rotation ends when our current lease runs out, so we're following her onto the next stop: Boise, ID.
In the next few weeks, I'll pack most of our furniture
- and most of our belongings - into storage so that the essentials in our life fit into
(and onto) the Subaru. The boys and I will spend the month of July in Idaho with Nikki, then head to New Hampshire for the month of August. We'll meet up with Nikki in San Diego for the month of September, and then head back up to Oregon for October through December. Her first fall rotation is in
Newberg, which is about 30-45 minutes south of PDX, and her second one will be in Portland, so we're not sure what we'll do about housing.
The gypsy life.
Stay tuned...
Back to the biking thing
Mr. Independent
After a few months backslide into the use of training wheels, Liam removed them piece-by-piece this week. We started on Monday by removing his left training wheel. He zipped around and mainly used the training wheel as a kickstand and for starting and stopping. The right training wheel kept hanging him up on right-hand turns, so on Friday he said to me, "Daddy, this thing is getting in my way. Let's take it off."
He loved it and cruised up and down the street. Stopping was never an issue - he'd apply the brakes, put a foot down and stand there like he's been doing it for years - but starting was a different issue. Everytime he'd come to a stop on Friday, he'd look at me and say, "a little help, please," and I'd hold the back of his seat while he'd get going.
On Saturday, he looked at me and said, "I think I can start on my own. Show me again how to do it." I showed him, and off he went. First try. He's now a fully independent biker.
What's with the white vans?
I'm not really sure what's with me and white vans. It was a white van that
drove me off the road last September, and today, I had a run in with yet another white van. My friend Bryce and I were out on a ride today when a white van came hauling ass around a corner about an eighth of a mile back, I heard them coming, and started to move into single file
(we were riding next to each other - I realize it's not encouraged, but we were out on a rural road...) but these guys laid on the horn and sat on it as they approached us, passed us
(and threw water on us - we hope!) and drove off.
Assholes.
It was free admission, and the rides were just two bucks each. The problem was, Camper was too small for most of the rides, which meant Liam would ride alone and I'd have to stay with a kicking and screaming two-and-a-half-year-old. When he did get to ride, he was into it. He showed his big brother how to do the crazy bungee-jumper, easily going twice as high as Liam had, all while screaming, "I Iron Man!"
