My Cocoonish Life on the East Side

It's funny how quickly we adapt to things. Our situations change and after a brief time of acclamation we rarely notice the change at all. I bring this up because last year in August we moved back to Milwaukee, but this time to the Lower East Side, not central city. Which in itself was a change for us, but we have quickly adapted.

It wasn't a drastic change at first, in St. Louis we went down to one car and tried to live much more locally. Once we moved to the East Side it got even easier to live such a life style. I had to drive to work everyday but everything else we could walk or ride to. Well, now I work on the East Side too, and we drive maybe three to four times a week. Most of those trips are less than 5 miles.

I am to the point now where I weigh in a 15 minute drive to the decision to do something or not. Especially if we are visiting our family that week, I mean that is like a 40 minute drive one way right there! That eats up about all I can stand to be in the car these days. Don't get me wrong though, I am not militant about cars, I still drive places to ride my bike. One can't be a militant non-car person and drive places to ride a bike. I just actively do not enjoy driving.

Although, with a little imagination, I am finding ways to ride (and run these days) around where I live that keep me driving even less. I think I may share some of those in the coming weeks.