Who needs a car anyways???

I decided to chronicle my family’s journey—literal and metaphorical—of trying to survive with one car. But after one day of mass transit and bike, I’m not sure there will be much of a journey before I cave and buy a new car. Maybe it can be my journey to be less car dependent or something like that, something much less grandiose or important. I can imagine if I wrote one of those books about how I did something for a month or a year (do these kinds of books/documentaries make up a particular genre?), mine would be entitled “How a family of five kinda sort of went without two cars for awhile.” I’ll never quite reach the status of my one-car heroes with one kid, Dr. Write and Middlebrow, and my no-car hero, Signifying Nothing.

After my Kia Rio engine was internally destroyed and the red carcass was sold for junk, I immediately started to resent having to buy a new car. Certainly not something in our budget or plans. My mind tried to find a way out (read I started to obsess). Kids adjusted ok: youngest son thought it an adventure to ride his bike to his friends house a mile away; daughter was less convinced, as she called after a party,
"Are you coming to get me?" (long pause)
"No, that's why we had you ride your bike"
"Oh, ok."

And oldest son has been biking to drum lessons already. Still, not sure how we'd negotiate soccer/dance Saturday with multiple games and dance practices at a variety of locals, sometimes at the same time. But first things first: how the hell do I get to work?

Yesterday I left home at 8:15 am on my road bike and rode two miles to the new Frontrunner station—a mere 6 minute ride at 20mph. I boarded where there was a bike symbol, but a bike was already in the designated spot so I just leaned it against my seat which worked out fine. Looking the seasoned pro, I put on some classical music to block out the talk from the couple across from me and started to read the Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle—how often do I get to put 30 minutes into a book for fun during the morning of a work day? Never.

Frontrunner ride was smooth, fast, and air-conditioned. Next, transition central station at 6^th west and 250 south. From here I biked down 6^th west and then turned at 8^th south, which has a great bike lane, the plan being to head west to Redwood road. But I was tempted by the Jordan Parkway, so I traveled its circuitous route from 8^th south to 33^rd south—a nice detour even if it add a couple of miles and a few hills. At Redwood campus by 9:50 am, bike computer read 11.5 miles and about 35 minutes.

Only major unexpected, as I took off my son’s back pack, a completely and utterly sopping wet back. Luckily I’d brought my cycling shirt (thinking I might cycle all the way home in the evening which I ultimately decided against) which I changed into so I could dry out my shirt. Shirt never completely dried, but hey it didn’t stink.

After a day of teaching in my casual wear, including cycling socks with skulls on them, I left Redwood at 6:55 in order to catch the 7:25pm train. I knew this would be cutting it a bit close but I also knew Redwood slanted somewhat downhill to the north; unfortunately, I had moderate headwind most of the way. Not wanting to wait for the 8:25 train, I put the foot to the pedal, rarely letting my speed dip below 20mph and cranking up to 27mph on several occasions. All was going well until I hit the last train crossing on a 8^th south, just blocks away from the station: I should have made a run for it as the UP train was going slow as molasses but I decided to be safe and wait. I made Frontrunner with a minute or so to spare.

Exerting such effort was quite invigorating but also made me sweat: after having situated myself, I peered to my left and scanned behind me, then made a mad rush to take off my damp cycling shirt and put on my now finally dry regular shirt. Maybe there’s a bathroom where I could have changed; certainly the woman to my left, exposed to my brilliant white hairless concave chest, was wishing I’d scouted one out.

Journey #1 done. Tomorrow, Journey #2 with a couple of twists: I will take my mountain bike, which is much slower on the roads so I will make a transfer to Trax even though it will take me almost as long to get from the Frontrunner station to the Trax Fireclay station at 47^th South as it will take me to get from Layton to SLC. But then it’s only a 3, instead of 8, mile ride to Redwood campus—must save the legs as I’m going to mountain bike the Bobsled trail with a friend that evening. Now if I can figure out how to fit everything I need into my small mountain bike pack so that I can pop out just before City Creek at the end of our ride and, without returning to my friend’s house, descend to the Frontrunner station for my ride home. Good thing it’s the last day of classes so no need for silly fat books I make students buy and since student turn in work electronically no big bag of papers.

I’m never going to make it without a car; maybe, though, I can learn something and do the train 2-3 times a week while the weather is good. I even considered buying a junker car and parking it at the SLC Frontrunner station so I could drive it from there to Redwood each day and then drive it home on Friday. But I assume it would get ticketed or maybe even stolen.

Soooooooo desperately not wanting to buy a car.

Dancing across Antelope by Moonlight

Last night oldest son, Seth, and I completed the 22 mile Antelope by Moonlight bike ride "creatures by night." And we were indeed creatures by night even though we did not dress up as bugs etc as a few did, though son thought our biking spandex was plenty enough costume. The ride started at the marina and went out to the renovated Garr Ranch (or what I call the only place you can find a bunch of trees on the island). It was a spectacular ride in so many ways--30+mph downhill on the biggest hill; a full and visible moon, which started out a big yet orangey because of haze, but came into its own as the night progressed; an excellent tune-up for son's 50 mile ride in August which will complete his cycling merit badge; good late night conversation; and we missed all of the crowds by getting there early, starting out hard, and finishing early.

Speaking of starting out hard, I told Seth we should kind of push it a bit the first mile or two in order to distance ourselves from the 900 other riders lined up. I didn't want one of our wheels to get caught up in a cape or something. About a mile in, clearly revved up with adrenaline, he said, "so is this supposed to hurt since we are pushing it?" i.e. I can go faster if you want. He was, as they say, "dancing on the pedals" or my favorite "pedaling without a chain."

This summer may indeed go down in the annals of Christiansen family lore as the summer of biking. Sometimes when we think about having kids, we--read "I"--get nervous about all the ways in which we may screw up and then be blamed for said screw ups for years to come. And I'm sure this will happen to me, but it's also interesting how kids can salvage one's mistakes. For example, as recounted here before, I've been an obsessive and stupid athlete at times, injuring body and mind, in the pursuit of victory. All that didn't really work out too well for me and yet now I can share my joy of cycling with my son--kind of makes up for my mistakes. Also, riding with Seth tempers me. I'm less (note less--I'm not a saint) concerned with how fast we are going or who is passing us. Instead of focusing on myself (full disclosure: I did hammer the last hill and then couldn't find Seth but he was waiting for me at the van so all went well), I'm concerned with how he is doing, feeling, etc. Just about to hit 40, that's where I need to be.

A Room of One's Own

Life doesn’t seem to thoroughly surprise me too often anymore. Well, that’s not entirely true. I often get surprised at how absolutely stupid we are at times. Like when watching Sicko the other night, I just couldn’t believe the inanity of our health care system and the amazing lies we continue to tell ourselves about so-called socialized medicine. But I also couldn’t believe that a smart guy like Michael Moore continues to insist on including a few low blows (i.e his Charleton Heston stunt in Bowling for Columbine) like the boat into Cuba—dumb, over-dramatic, not even rhetorically savvy. So that kind of surprise I get plenty of but the positive shake-up, the “wow, I’m feeling so good about how the world has opened up” rarely happens.

It happened today when we set up my new office. It’s not exactly “new” but before it was just a fold up table and a book shelf. Now, thanks to furniture in a box and my wife who pushed and pulled me along, I’ve got a desk, a hutch, two book shelves and a matching filing cabinet (though my wife will probably take over this, sticking all kinds of unimportant crap in there like our birth certificates, warranties, account information, you name it). It’s got that new-all-over kind of feel—new carpet, new baseboards that I cut and my wife painted, a new lamp, and lot of space where I can stack books and papers and crap. But that’s not what led to my epiphany, not exactly.

A room of one’s own, a potentially blasphemous comparison I know being the dominant white male I am, but it’s true. I haven’t had my own permanent space since I was a kid and back then I didn’t know dick about what I liked or what comforted me. I know I have a house, all 3,000 square feet of it, but it’s not only my space and honestly it’s really my wife’s space. I’m not really blaming her—I’ve pretty much relinquished the space as I don’t trust my decorating skills and because I have other important battle fronts. To demonstrate: I’ve had some old beer bottles I’ve wanted to put out; instead they have been wrapped and shaded in a wooden box with a latch (one my dad made in wood shop) for years. I’m not a beer drinker so why in the hell would I want to display these? Because they have a story, a great story. When I was about 12 my grandmother Christy had me and my cousin, Jeff, help clean out her attic. While cleaning it we found cases of old beer bottles. Given my grandmother was a devout Mormon, this came as a bit of shock. Turns out her husband made his own beer. Funny she kept the bottles for so long—he died in the late 1950s.

My grandmother was quite embarrassed and wasn’t going to let us keep any of the bottle until we begged. And even then she only wanted us to have one of each kind. I clearly remember going back to the truck and sneaking about small 12 oz Fisher bottle. On many occasion I’ve tried to find a place for these but my wife has always put the Kaibosh on it. I guess they tie me to my past, to my grandmother Christy who lived next door where I spent evenings watching the Love Boat and eating popcorn popped the old way with oil in a pan and days helping the garden, moving the grass, carrying out her flower boxes (hell they were heavy) each summer that she’d kept alive in the house during the winter. And they speak to the often hidden lives of Mormons—I like that.

And now at 39, I have a space where I can put up whatever I want. It’s kind of liberating, opening up all kinds of possibilities.

I scouted around for the boxes that hold my childhood stuff. I’ve found many a treasure to put in my new found space: marbles that my dad gave me which he had gotten from Uncle Floyd—several are made of clay, dating back 70 plus years; nifty rocks I’ve held onto for years—a petrified piece of wood, a seeming embedded vertebrae of some sorts, a pink crystal type rock; and many more antique bottles. The attic clean up with my grandma Christy also yielded several wine jugs, my favorites are the fancy Ellena Brothers 1 gallon wine jugs from CA. It took cunning to keep a hold of these as my grandma tried to get them back a week later; she had a friend who wanted to plant something in them---of course we refused, thinking this was an abomination to blemish such a fine bottle.

I also put on display several of the antique bottles my grandpa Mackey gave me before he died. He literally had 1,000s of antique purple bottles curing on his roof for years, then stored them in the basement along side his vast collection of arrowheads. He was an impatient man with people, until he got older, but a meticulous, detailed oriented collector. A year or so before he died he began to distribute his bottles to his grandchildren. Among my 15 or so are several flasks, a few Watkin’s medicine flasks, and a purplish thick bottle which my grandpa said was of very good quality. Glass a dying age of containers, which reaches back to those past on.

It’s the oddest feeling sitting here with the familiarity of my stuff: my little sanctuary. I’m not sure why I didn’t do this before—the money, the time, insecurities. Here I am and feels good, calming, in the moment. So many possibilities open up for one not apt to buy much of anything outside of books and bikes: some images of Hayao Miyazaki crouched over his drawings smoking, images from Miyazaki’s films, some Dan Johnston artwork, a Georgia O’Keefe, a landscape painting or two. Maybe having these things around me solidifies what I believe in, what I’ve done, who I am. A room of my own is a very fine thing.

Guess what I saw?

While Rexburg itself is mostly flat, treeless, and unenticing (at least geographically) a mere 25 miles away is Mesa Falls. I got an early start this morning with road bike and gear in tow. I parked next to an alfalfa field just outside of Ashton, unloaded my bike, and started out on my Mesa Falls Scenic Byway adventure.

Yes, I did fell slightly guilty that I drove 50 miles (roundtrip) in order to bike 40 miles. Still, it had much more appeal than a ride through the potatoe fields around Rexburg and the appeal came through better than the promises of our $20 fireworks kit from the night before. First, I stopped to stretch and meditate a bit at Warm River, then I ascended through shady coniferous roads towards Bear Gulch, an appropriate name given I saw..... (I'm not shitting you) a bear cub. It ran across the road about 20 yards from me. I about fell off the bike, not from fear but joy--I just couldn't believe it. And, Yes, I was afraid the sow might be near so I did not dither; of course if she had given chase I would have cranked in a Tour de France type finish line sprint and left her in the dust. At least that's how I pictured it in my mind as I quickly looked back and forth across the road as I passed where the cub had crossed. Inspired by the bear sighting, I looked more closely for animals, spotting two white tail deer just off the road a few minutes later.

And through it all (at least the 20 miles out early in the morning) I only passed a handful of cars--everyone must have slept in with some hangover, alcohol or firework induced, keeping them flattened to the mattress. I wondered whether Mega was up and about yet--she and the Historian were probably only a handful of miles away from where I turned around (just west--I think--to Island Park). Seems they may have had the firework hangover (see here). And yes, Mega, Idaho does equal Heaven, about the closest any of us will ever get to heaven thinks me.

I did take two quick detours to see both the lower and upper falls (I've seen them several times but still had to stop). On the way back, I set out to improve my paltry 13mph average--several hills and some coasting to look for animals and the views to blame and I'm kind of out of shape. I only increased it to 16mph, but I was ok with that--I'd seen a bear cub, I'd seen a bear, and I'd enjoyed the immensley enjoyable sound of nothing else (for most of the trip) but my wheels spinning down the road in a vast Idaho landscape of tree, rivers, mountains.