PeDdLe tO tHe PaVeMenT

Or would our version be "pushed my car up hill both ways"? I bought my shiny 1998 black Honda Civic in 2002, a few days before my brother Neil's wedding. The whole family was Utah and we were trying to get me settled into my junior year at BYU before the big event. I didn't know how to drive a standard at the time so my brother Derek and dad took it out on test drives (with me in the car.)

I remember driving away, filled with a sense of both excitement and trepidation. We were on a busy road between Orem and Provo when I stalled the car and couldn't get it to start again. I panicked. Derek and I quickly did a Chinese fire drill so he could take over, after that it was a brutal crash course in driving a stick shift. I will admit that for the first few months, I even avoided a certain Provo exit involving a steep hill. Well, it seemed steep at the time.

What also seemed steep was the price of gasoline. It cost roughly $15 to fill up my 10-gallon tank, and to me that was a lot of money. However, then Hurricane Katrina hit and my mom called saying, "Go fill up your tank, gas is going to go over $2!" My roommates and I piled in the car and waited in line for gas--that all seems a bit ridiculous now. Why? Because times have changed. I've conquered my fear of hills, I'm an even better parallel parker and gas just reached $4 per gallon, equating to $40 per tank.

I posted this factoid on my FB last week and two resulting thoughts made me very happy:

1) I love that I have friends from all around the world (who can out-complain me over gas.)
2) I am even more determined to use my bike AS MUCH as possible this summer--that means I need a basket. I am, after all, all about beating "the man."