...
are back in New England and working full time, so our adventures
(and my time to update the website) have slowed down a bit.
2007 has been interesting. Pamela did not touch a shift lever
for 5 months, and did the New
England Fleche on fixed.
 We
survived three years without owning a car,
but often rented to get rides some distance away. We managed
to get a tandem inside a small rental car - see the photos
here. We finally decided
that we take enough weekend trips that we should just bite
the bullet and take possession of one full time. After trying
many different cars with our zipcar membership we opted for
the versatility and good fuel economy of the Fit shown in
the article above. It's a shame that fuel economy has stayed
stagnant for 30 years, but hopefully the next time I have
to go through this, things will have improved dramatically.
We will continue to do all the things we have done without
a car - like cycling to work, shopping on bike and foot, and
using bus and subway to get into the city. We will use our
new full time vehicle just like we've used rentals - weekends
away, and the occasional chair purchase! It's sad to say that
one of the issues is lack of good long distance public transit
here. We recently tried to use Amtrak for a trip, and found
the Vermonter has removed their baggage car, so no bikes in
Vermont! If we lived in Europe, we could likely use trains
for many of our weekend trips, where we go travel some distance
for an event. I'm a a bit sad about this turn of events, if
you will. The car salesman could not grasp my struggle with
the whole idea of getting a car. On the other hand, we are
also looking forward to doing spur of the moment mountain
biking this fall and skiing this winter. If you want to read
about where I would NOT recommend one go for a Honda car,
click here.
You
may also want to check out the New
Zealand Diary to see how we spent our mid-career retirement!
|
If
your email is bouncing to us, try the links below. We've been
suffering quite a bit of spam lately and Pamela has changed
her address to pgb at blayleys.com and mail to 'pamela' will
now bounce. John is trying a different technique, but does
receive mail to both 'john' and 'jfb'. In the future if mail
bounces to any of these addresses, check back here and try
using the links at the bottom of the page!
We
have stuff for sale. Click here
There
should be a menu across the top of every page. If you don't
see it, it may be because you have disabled javascript in
your browser. If so, you may use the links below to navigate
through the site.
New
Zealand Diary
Trips
Tips
About Us
|
