A blog I've been reading lately

On finance (of all things!) has been encouraging the bike. As in, whenever you can (and you can a lot more than you believe), leave the car parked and just pedal off. I happily recommend Mr. Money Mustache's writings, but note that he can be a bit, well, salty in his language. The proverbial sailor will feel at home. You have been warned.

The man advocates a radical idea: living on less than you make. As in a LOT less. As in, you can't buy happiness and should stop trying. Lots of good wisdom in there, as I remember our Lord's beautiful saying: "A man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions."

So true. Anyway, off on my bike this morning (Cindi was working) and I headed up the road, stopping to do pushups till I met my quota and then just enjoying the sun, the clouds, the birds, the train, the children with their mom, the trees, the gardens, the swamp, the cardinal, the groundhog, not so much the skunk (the smell crept up on me as I was doing a set of pushups; form went out the window and I hurried to finish the set and get on the bike and out of the vicinity!). I think it was probably just shy of a 20 mile ride, up to Staunton and back and then around town.

One of our friends used to ride his bike daily between Staunton and East St. Louis where he was principal for the local Lutheran school. I'm still in awe of that.

A trip over the river? Someday, maybe. But for now, I think I'll stick to pedaling around the village or one of the neighboring towns and count a trip up to Staunton and back from Hamel a decent run. And I have definitely decided no trips in the car to the post-office or our local grocery. I'm even thinking about trying to get in the habit of just biking the 15 minutes up to the church.

Text to Cindi at work: Staunton. Yeah, you can hate me...