On somewhat of a whim my family and I have made the decision to stop using our cars for the month of July. An easy feat or an incredible inconvenience? It depends who you ask. Many people simply use public transportation in larger cities or bike everywhere they need to go, while others don't know how they'd survive without their vehicles. And me, although I can't say I have missed using my vehicles too much this past week, I can easily throw upwards of 40,000 miles on my vehicles in a year. Hey, I like to travel. :)

So how does one go carless in a small city with virtually no public transportation....bike!

Here's a brief summary of the past carless week.

Day One: Biked to pick up a movie

Day Two: Biked to return the movie and my husband biked about 23 miles to visit his parents

Day Three: The husband biked home another 23 miles

Day Four (4th of July): Walked to the parade and fireworks

Day Five: Biked to a local restaurant with friends, biked to farmers market

Day Six: Biked to the beach and grocery store

Day Seven: Carpooled to movies

Day two and three of this past week illustrate a good point that many people point out when you decide to go carless...the fact that not everywhere you want to or need to go is close. However, twenty-some miles on a bike isn't that great of a feat at all especially if you use a road bike (which we don't :P).

The second highlight of this past week occurred on day 6 with a trip to the grocery store. It counters another argument against going carless....the one that indicates you won't be able to buy things or do what you need to do to live. To this I say HA! I successfully transported 3 bags of groceries, a 24 pack of bottled water, and a birthday cake in my nifty bike car without a problem.

The Bike and Bike Car