Well, here she is in all her glory. My ride.
She was hard to come by. I found her on a website called TradeMe. It's New Zealand's cross between Ebay and Craigslist. I'm pretty sure I overpaid for her by three times, but it was one of those things where I just had to win. I had already run the distance with the boys in a double stroller next to Katie on her bike for two days and my legs were raw. And when I say raw I mean bleeding from all the scratching due to the uncontrollable itching....that's right, I'm allergic to running. So, unless it was going to cost more than a brand new trailer or a car I was going to pay it. And, I think "usearch and doofa78" felt the same way. The lame thing about this site is it auto extends. Meaning, if anyone bids in the last 2 minutes they extend the auction. So here I am bidding thinking I should have won yadda amount of dollars ago and we're still going driving the price up for fifteen extra minutes. Sheesh! Finally, the aforementioned bidders realized this was far too much to pay for one measly trailer and they allowed me to win. Success!
You should see the looks we get with this bad boy. People will literally stop what they are doing, look and point as we drive by. I've had people even slow down to a crawl as they drive by and just gawk. Absolutely no subtleness about it. It's really quite funny. You would think we had three heads to something.
The trailer is tight for the boys, but they seem to do fine most of the time. There are the occasional battles that require a stop, but for the most part they've done really well. I think they think it's fun in there. Every morning we have to wait while they decide which item (saws, screwdrivers, sunglasses, books, sticks, balloons etc) will accompany them on the trip. Their biggest complaint is helmets, but even that has become so normal that it's not a battle anymore.
Fortunately, the road we take to Katie's school is super bike friendly. There is a bike path for most of the way that parallels street parking next to the beach. So most of the time we can even ride side by side. I'm sure that will all change in a month or two as the tourists poor in and take all the parking spots. All in all it really is a fun way to get her to and from school. She tells me all about her day on the ride home and I can give her mostly one on one listening with the boys in the trailer. Another plus is I don't have to deal with the traffic when picking her up. It's a pretty smooth way of doing things.....on the days that are nice. And when it's nice it is breathtaking.
Now let's talk about the weather.
We're mostly home bound, just because everything is so far away that I'm totally sweaty and stinky by the time we get there, it takes forever to get anywhere and I don't want the boys to become sick of riding so they fight all the way to and from school because that is something we have to do, and most of the other roads are little dangerous for riding with a trailer.
And, the weather. Oh, the weather. It can be pretty harsh sometimes. We've ridden in torrential downpours with the rain going every way but, down. That required a full change of clothing for Katie by the time she got to school because she was soaked. Oh, and did I mention that was picture day. Yep! Currently we are dealing with 30-40 mph winds that always end up in a headwind no matter what direction you're going. Seriously, it's the most baffling thing. I think the wind swirls here or something. On Tuesday, it was so bad it knocked me off my bike and almost tipped the entire trailer over. And poor Katie was riding at a 45 degree angle and then got pelted with a gust of sand. At one moment we were trying to cross a street and we literally couldn't move our bikes it was blowing so hard. And, yesterday someone mentioned this is normal weather for about three weeks. Hmmm, that's just the amount of time until the end of this term. Great timing.
Now that I've painted such an awful picture I really must admit that I enjoy riding to school and on nice days I would prefer to ride vs drive. I'm quite sure this is the only time in my life I will ever get to ride a bike next to the ocean everyday and it really is wonderful. But, if I could just have my Pilot on those bad days.
This is precisely why I have dreams of my Pilot.....
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