As everyone knows by now, gas prices in the USA have gone up quite a lot. When I started driving my first own car (nissan truck) in Ohio it was 1995, if I remember correctly gas was under a dollar a gallon, and i seem to remember some places even around 89 cents a gallon. At the time, my salary as a landscaper was around $1200 dollars a month, and that gave me enough to buy gas with out thinking about it. My truck was a little nissan thing that had holes on the floor, so when it rained or the ground was wet from snow the wheels would splash water on my feet. The driver door was falling off, and the passenger door was frozen shot. My friend Owen and his girl friend used to make fun of it, yet they would always be happy to get a ride. I never thought about gas mileage and things like that. I only got rid of it when in a snow storm my windshield wipers got blown away by the wind and I had to use my hands to wipe the windshield (which prompted a police officer to stop me on Christmas eve).
Times have change and now I own a couple of VW Vanagons 83 and 87 (I loved the first rusty ridden one so much, that i had to buy a Westfalia camper, both of them have been huge headaches and money pits, but that is a different story, and I love them both), and my wife owns a VW Golf from 97, and up till a couple of years ago, we drove them almost every day to take the dogs to the park or go to the grocery store and things like that. At one point in 2000 I drove my 83 Vanagon daily to work in the winter and car pulled my friend and bike messenger (at the time) Sarah.
Yet since gas started going up and up with no end in sight, we drove less and less, me being a bike messenger in Chicago (or a stay at home dad for a few years) I would ride my bike all the time, and my wife being a telecommuter for her job, both used the cars very little, just when we took my son with us somewhere or when one of us we were lazy to ride to the store for groceries.
Now we live in Austin Tx. and we almost don’t use the cars. Aside from the ocasional trip to Red Bud Island where my dogs can swim in the river-lake, or when we go to do big groceries at HEB, and since there is a small convinient store-grocery just a few steps from our house, we opt for walking there some times and pay a little more for products rather than drive a mile to the big grocery store.
But thats not all, right before I started to work, when we had been here for only a couple of weeks, I felt there was the need of an alternative to be able to take my son with me without having to drive the car. I searched on Craigslist for a few days and came up with a good way to do it. A bike trailer. It holds 2 kids and can carry 100 libs. It was used and only came up to $150 dollars. My son loves it and so far its been great. I can take him and still carry a bunch of groceries in it. Its a little beat up and I might have to get a new one at one point, but from the first day I knew that it was the best $150 I had spend in a while. I have no idea how much gas or money I have saved, but i know that since then I might have gone to the gas station 2 times or something like that, and probably didn’t even filled up all the way. Now its not easy, I take my son every day to his day care (he is only going to be 4 this september), and some days I don’t feel like dragging that thing behind me, it adds weight, wind resistance and it makes me feel a bit vulnerable with my son attached to my bike riding the streets, since a bunch of texans seem to hate bikers. Also my wife has to go and get him around 4pm and she sometimes has taken the car, either because she was tired or it was raining (twice), or any other reason.
Bikes and trailer
I never thought it was a special thing to do this, in my mind I was saving money and in passing not polluting. Yet some people think it is special, they even think its news worthy.
The funny thing is that this girl also thinks its normal, yet just because she is documenting it, it made the news. I hope that after her experiment is finish, she won’t go back to driving all the time. I sure won’t. By the way, am selling my oldest Vanagon, since its been a huge hole in my pocket lately and I sure don’t need two of them. Any takers?
My 83 Vanagon
