The past 7 months . . .

I almost forgot about this blog. Well since it's been seven months since my most recent (and very first) post, I figure some updates are long overdue. First I still do not own a car. Instead I have purchased two electric bicycles off craigslist. More about those later. Second, after a long discussion with the misses, we decided it was best to move out of the suburbs and closer to our places of work and our daughter's school. So we ended up settling just outside downtown San Antonio. We use the local public transit system to do most of our traveling. We're still working on balancing time and number of errands we can do a day in this fashion. I do miss the get up and go whenever convenience that a car allows, but I think I'll manage. So far i have been carless for about 9 months and counting.

Becoming car free (not by choice!)

Becoming car free was not my first choice. In fact it was a complete accident (pun intended). After a record number of 100 degree days here in south Texas, it finally started to cool off. Then in the beginning of September it started to rain. Jenn and I had dropped off our eldest daughter at pre-kinder and were on our way to her classes at San Antonio Community College when we found ourselves caught in a deluge of rain. Viability was bad and we slowed down to a crawl. We past several accidents alongside the highway and slowed down even more. We considered pulling off to the side of the road but just as we were about to do so the rainfall lessened and the road ahead was clear so we decided to continue on our way. The roadways were still wet so we continued well below the speed limit but we thought the worst was behind us. We were taking the off ramp from I-10 east to 281 north when it happened. The rear of our little Focus wagon fishtailed and despite Jenn's best efforts we slammed into the guardrail spun around and came to a stop on the grassy area off to the right hand side of the road. Apparently even 15 MPH was to fast. Fortunately no one was hurt, just frightened. The driver side door was jammed so I got out to examine the damage. Our car was a total loss but it did its job well. We called a good friend of the family who arrived to pick us up and take us home. So began our car free life.