Category Archives: Advocacy & Local Issues

Bicycle advocacy both local and national, as well as discussion of local bicycle incidents with the community and/or police

I’ve been here before…

You don’t want to fly with me if you’re not into long hikes through airports. I’m on my way to DC for the annual bike summit, where this year we get to beg and plead for congress to not eliminate all bike & pedestrian funding, which means a week off the bike. Yuck. But it also means Gate 89. The last gate at the end of SFOs long United pier. My flight was originally scheduled out of Gate 73, adjacent to security. Somehow, United keeps track of me and makes sure I get my exercise at the airport.

Flying first to Newark, aboard a “real” United plane not-yet-painted with the “deathstar” logo of the recent merger with Continental. Then a puddle jumper to DC and metro ride to my hotel in Bethesda. Why Bethesda and not DC? About 150 dollar bills per night difference, that’s why! For that I can handle a 16 minute Metro ride into downtown DC. Save that money for bike stuff. 🙂

Meantime watching a steady stream of passengers from first class using our bathroom in coach. Why is it a “security issue” for coach passengers to use their bathroom but they can use ours?

20120319-223228.jpg

Life on the road / does this bed need more pillows?

Wednesday morning I was home, that night in Nashville and now in Minneapolis before returning home late Sunday night. If I was just traveling to one place it would seem very different, just a short business trip, one of many. But something changes when you’re finished at your first stop and then, instead of coming home, you head somewhere else. Somewhere you cross an imaginary line that separates the normal trip from one that gives a taste of life on the road and a sense that a hotel is your home. A momentum builds suddenly when that next flight takes you somewhere else, not home.

20120218-003356.jpg