One Year

It is quite impossible to fathom the profound impact of going car-free has been in my life.  Sometimes in my own thoughts, I forget how this has changed not only my life, but us as a family.  I recently overhead The Artist tell someone that this was the best decision that we have made in our married life together.  I agree.

Biking as transportation has given us so much.  It has given us time to be together as a family enjoying the outdoors, every day of the past year.  It has given us an identity that is ours with our box bike and our 6 year old confident to ride on the streets.  It has given us new friends both here and in the blogosphere that are working toward making our world a better and safer place.  It has given me spiritual insight into how the small changes that I make really can help others and myself.  It has given me confidence to try things that I have been afraid of doing in the past.  It has given me the insight that family and community are vastly more important than the things that we own and the conveniences that those possessions offer us.

And so in honor of this very special day, we invited anyone who was willing to join us for bike party.  It was a party to celebrate the accomplishment of the past year and to help us look forward to the future.  We started in a park.  Here are some of the pictures of the people who came.  Sadly I did not get pictures of everyone.  Next time I'll do better.
 

And then we took off on a leisurely ride through residential streets.  Some of these friends had not ridden a bike for years so it was great to see them rise to the occasion. 

We ended up at a local Mexican resturant where they were very accommodating with our 20 + bikes.

                               

Here's to another year of car-free living.