The Car-Free Challenge: Saturday

Saturday is the day of the Farmer’s Market downtown, which at this time, still has very few farmers! Spring was late this year, and so the produce is late, and it’s a good thing we can ship it all in from California, or we’d starve to death.

But seriously. We took the bus to the Farmer’s Market, then walked down to the transit station to pick up the BIG bus map, so we can continue our challenge into next week and the future. We walked back to the Farmer’s Market, picked up a few things, got an iced coffee and a crepe, sat on the lawn for a while, and then decided to go to the grocery store. This occasioned some nervousness on John’s part, because he didn’t want to pick up a huge amount of stuff at the store. But that’s ok, because we didn’t need a huge amount of stuff!

Back on the 603 bus, past our usual stop, on to the Smith’s. We bought everything we need, and a few things we don’t, and only spent $64, about half the usual amount. I think this is partly because we didn’t buy a LOT of things we didn’t need, for fear we couldn’t carry them! (We cheat, admittedly, because we have a delivery dairy, as well as a CSA membership, so don’t go thinking this is our total grocery bill, or that we were trying to get milk home this way!)

We came out of the store, and while we were trying to figure out which stop to stand at, the North-bound bus went by (the Smith’s is near the end of the line, so you can get on South-bound if you want, and it won’t take much longer than crossing the extremely busy street and heading back North-bound). It would be about 1/2 an hour before the next bus, so we decided to walk. Turned out the bank was open, so we stopped and deposited our economic stimulus check (whoopee!), and then cut across campus. We were home in less than 1/2 an hour, including the time to stop and deposit the check. All the food was fine, and so were we, in spite of the 100-degree heat today.

I will say that I think I need new sneakers. Mine were worn out at the beginning of the week, and I’ve put some miles on ‘em since then. Do they make sneakers that are meant to actually be used to actually go places? I’ll have to shop around! On Monday. At the mall. Which I can get to by taking a bus that goes RIGHT PAST MY HOUSE! (Have I mentioned that I feel like an idiot for not doing this years ago?)

We spent some time this afternoon talking about what it would be like to get rid of the car all together. We ran some numbers, and figure we could save about $5000/year. What would we do with an ‘extra’ $5000/year, tax-free? Huh. That’s like getting a $7,500/year pay raise. We’ll try being car-free a little while longer, and see how we do. If we can do it for six months, then that will get us into the winter months, and we’ll know that we can do it all the time.

Tonight, we have a dinner date with the Johnstons, to exchange trip souvenirs. We’ll walk over there on the trail, cutting across Mount Ogden Park, and walking on surface streets for probably less than half a mile. In the past, we’ve tended to walk to their house about half the time. It’s a nice walk, and since our dog likes to play with their dog, we usually take Cassie with us. It’s nice to be able to take her for a long-ish walk through the woods on the way over there...

Have I mentioned that Ogden is a really great place to live?