After we had Billy and Katie, we did a lot of riding with them, starting when Katie was old enough to wear a helmet. Katie even flirted with bike racing for a brief moment.

Of course there were a few painful experiences, like when Billy fell off his bike on the Minuteman rail trail and had his first experience with road rash.

But all in all, biking was a very positive experience for the entire family, as long as there as ice cream involved.

Things had been going so well biking with the kids that we decided to try touring with them. Our second Pennsylvania tour was in 2002, almost a decade after we had done it without the kids. We took Billy and Katie for a week long adventure.

We decided to get a room at a hotel for the entire week – thus eliminating the need to carry panniers and worry about where to stay each day. We thought that searching for rooms and food with two little kids would be way too big an adventure. And the kids loved having a pool to relax in after each day of riding.

Having to ride to the various tourist destinations helped the kids appreciate them. Billy and Katie both enjoyed the model train museum and the pretzel factory. We spoke with another family, with the same aged kids, who went to the same places that same summer, but by car. They reported that their kids thought making pretzels and looking at old trains was lame. Our kids loved all of that – not because they are fundamentally better kids (they’re not) but because ANYTHING was better than sitting on those stupid bikes.

Katie was always just a bit frustrated that we were all faster than her and she was thrilled to discover that she was faster than a horse and buggy.

Of course, it wasn’t all good. Katie was happy to dine in the all-you-can-eat Amish restaurants, but after 3 nights Billy loudly exclaimed that he refused to eat ham, fried chicken, or mashed potatoes ever again, and WANTED TACOS! The chocolate we bought at the Wilbur Chocolate Factory melted and made a huge mess.

But the big downer was when I forgot my wallet on the way to the Strasburg Train Museum, which left Carolyn alone with both kids for most of the journey. She rode behind Katie, and Bill rode behind her, and it all went fine until the very end, riding along a lot of traffic going to the museum, when Carolyn told Katie to turn right into the museum entrance. Katie promptly turned left, directly in front of a moving car! When I got there Katie was unhurt but hysterical, mostly because Carolyn was screaming something about killing her since the car hadn’t. Mommy had to sit in a miniature train station until they both cooled off. But the train ride was nice, and we had ice cream afterwards, which made them both happy again.

By the fifth day, the kids were happy to relax after our last day of riding. Katie really liked the bonnet we bought for her in the gift shop.

And it later that bonnet made a great accessory for her turn-of-the-century schoolgirl outfit she needed for her third grade trip to the turn-of-the-century schoolhouse.

Biking provided us with a popular family activity that we could all do. It was especially nice when we had my older kids over and all seven of us would pile into our minivan with all of the bikes on top and head out to the bike trail for a day together.

 

Carolyn and I did a second tour in England and France in August 1991. Oddly enough, even though this was not as long ago as our first tour, our memory of this one is fuzzier – after our first tour we made a photo album with captions that refreshed those memories. On the second tour, we did not and those memories faded with time. That’s one of the reasons I’m so enthusiastic about blogging on our ‘57 ride – it will keep the memories fresh.

For our second tour we planned to do the southern coast of England – we heard it was a popular vacation area and thought that it would be fun to take a ferry over to France and try touring in a non-English speaking country without actually committing the whole tour to it.

The only specific stop we had planned was to visit Arundel castle because a friend had said it was nice. We had no plans beyond that at all!

We left home on Saturday night and landed Sunday morning at Gatwick airport. We decided on Gatwick to avoid the problem we had the previous tour with the tube to London – Gatwick is both an airport and a train station. After reassembling the bicycles, we took a train to Chichester – it seemed like a reasonable place on the coast, and only ten miles from Arundel. We were not planning a big day because we knew to expect jet-lag from the flight.

We thought we had the train all figured out this time, but got on a car where bikes weren’t allowed and had to change cars at the next stop. The stop was so short we almost missed getting back on. Sigh.

When we arrived in Chichester we realized that had no idea what we wanted to do next. It was still early in the morning but we were tired and cranky and everything was a bit of an argument. We decided to Chichester cathedral but we couldn’t get in. We just walked around the area, relaxed and played with a friendly calico cat.

We called ahead to Arundel and made a reservation for the evening. With the jet lag, just riding the ten miles there wiped us out pretty thoroughly. We visited Arundel castle (which had a nice display of arms and armor), checked into the B&B, showered, and walked into town to find a restaurant. Because it was Sunday night there was only one restaurant open, but it turned out to be quite good.

On Monday we woke up late and almost missed breakfast. We went to the Wildfowl trust and saw lots of birds (Carolyn loves birds!). We rode south to Little Hampton, through East Brighton and Hone which were cities with lots of traffic. Brighton looked like a more civilized Coney Island. We stopped for chips and soda then were back on the road.

We found a nice bike path along the water, we got off in Peacehaven and continued on through Newhaven into Seaford – pretty town, big enough to find a place to eat a good meal, but we felt like we hadn’t gone far enough for the day and decided to continue on. We saw a sign for a zoo about four miles off route (Carolyn loves zoos!) so we decided to go there and then go back to Seaford for the evening. The road to the zoo was seriously hilly and we ended up giving up and heading back to town without ever actually getting there (I think it was at Drusilla’s Park).

When we got back to Seaford we could not find a B&B – we ended up at the tourist office and they found us a place – that was a hint of things to come. We showered and walked to town where we looked for a topographical map so we could avoid the hill problem. We couldn’t find one in the local bookstores and gave up. We stopped in a pub for a drink then had dinner at a nice Indian restaurant.

Tuesday we rode to Canterbury, a really scenic and historic area. Again we had a hard time finding a place to stay, so once we found a hotel, we decided to stay in Canterbury for a few days, doing daytrips to tour the area. The hotel was just down the street from Canterbury Cathedral which is a beautiful building.

On Wednesday we rode out to Woodchurch to see a Falconry display (did I say that Carolyn likes birds?).

On Thursday, we decided to check out the English shore, so we checked out of the hotel and headed to Margate. Along the way we found and took a picture of the classic “Ham Sandwich” street signs (this one is not our photo, I can’t find that one).

As it turns out Margate and the surrounding areas are where Londoners go to vacation at the beach. At the time, it was just a bit on the tacky side, a little run down at the edges. We were tired so we decided to look for a hotel. Unfortunately, the first hotel we found that had room was not clean. We asked to see the room before checking in and found someone else’s underwear hanging in the bathroom – so even though we were tired we decided not to stay there.

We continued on and ended up at Broadstairs, a really nice town with a lot of history associated with Charles Dickens (the Dickens House Museum is there). We were wiped out and walked to a park to relax – turns out they were having an American square dancing festival and we got to enjoy watching everyone giving it a try. It was a very nice ending to a not-so-nice day.

On Friday, we rode to Dover and discovered the white cliffs. Neither of us had really thought about that phrase “white cliffs” – in hindsight, it was obvious that it was a long way downhill to the shore. This was driven home when we (ok, when “I”) took a wrong turn and ended up going way, way downhill into St. Margaret’s Bay. St. Margaret’s Bay is in its own little pocket of the shore – the only way to Dover was back up the really steep hill and both Carolyn and I ended up walking our bikes up the $#&#! hill. From Dover we took the hovercraft to Calais which was quite fun. We rode up the coast to Dunkerque where after a lot of searching we found a hotel for the night. Again we decided that since it was hard to find a place, we’d stay for a couple of nights.

On Saturday, we were a bit tired and decided to be unambitious so we rode to Belgium and back just because it seemed like fun to visit yet another country. I really don’t remember how far along the coast we went, but I do remember Carolyn having Moule-frites (mussels) for lunch at a very nice place on the shore that would take whatever kind of currency we had (this was before the EU and the Euro).

Sunday was this tour’s day from hell. We did not count on all the stores and restaurants being closed. It was hot and we ran out of water. We discovered there is a mini mountain range separating Dunkerque and our destination, Boulogne-Sur-Mer. I don’t remember the route very well, but I do have some vivid memories: getting lost, riding a road that just faded out from under us, joking about buying some concrete lawn art, deciding we were going the right way because we were riding up a mountain into the wind, getting to the top of the mountain and having the clouds break open and the sun shine over the countryside, riding down a mountain with the wind so strong that I was in my lowest gear and Carolyn was drafting behind me (she never does that!), watching birds flying backwards. We finally found a convenience store where we had liverwurst on crackers and thought it was the best thing we’d ever eaten.

When we finally got to Boulogne-Sur-Mer we starting looking for a place to spend the night. We stopped in every hotel and B&B we saw and they were all booked full. We continued downhill through town finding nowhere to stay (this side of the channel is also something of a cliff). The tourist office was on the shore, at the bottom of the hill, and they found us a place – fifteen miles back up that $*#% hill.

We moped around a bit trying to figure out what we were going to do. We decided that if we were going to sleep on the beach, we’d take the ferry back to England so that when the cops roust us they would speak English. We took the ferry to Folkestone, and wonder of wonders there was a nice, somewhat fancy hotel with an available room. They weren’t going to let us take our bikes up the elevator to the room, but relented when they realized there was no good place to lock them up for the night.

Monday we decided was going to be a no biking rest day. We left the bikes in the hotel room and took the ferry back to Boulogne-Sur-Mer and wandered around eating pastries, drinking wine and beer and just having a wonderful time not riding our bikes. At the end of the day, we took the ferry back to Folkestone. We were both thrilled to be off the bikes after the previous day’s adventures.

Oddly enough, neither Carolyn nor I remember what happened after that. I seems that we did get home eventually. I do remember one incident where we were going down into a valley and right at the bottom was a small car that was upside down (no one was hurt). We stopped and helped flip the car back upright. I was struggling up the other side and it took forever to realize that I was still in my big chain ring. Occasionally Carolyn will still tease me about that (“are you sure you’re in the right gear?”).

So about this vacation thing.  When we used to go to the pool in the summer, people would talk about going on vacation.  There we were, poolside in bucolic suburbia, sitting on lounge chairs in the sun, sipping diet Coke, gossiping, watching our kids swim and dive and fight and romp, and people were talking about going on vacation.  And I would ask “Why are you going on vacation?  Vacation from what?”

OK, I was being a bit of a bitch, but really, life around here is pretty good.  If I ask myself if I need a vacation, the answer is most certainly no.  But I have to say that I am totally looking forward to not cooking, not even once, for an entire 2 months. 

Don’t get me wrong, I love cooking.  In fact, I love it so much it has become an obsession.  And perhaps a vacation from my obsession is a really good idea.

I started cooking in college, but more often than not, it was a disaster.  We fought over whether spaghetti sauce should have chunks.  We set our oven on fire.  We made something that could best be described as Horseradish Surprise.

Fact: If you put everything from your refrigerator into a pot, then add horseradish, the entire pot will taste like horseradish. 

Related fact: No matter how much ginger ale you add to your Listerine, it will still taste like Listerine.  (Going back a ways on this one.  You don’t need ID to buy Listerine, and it’s like 95 proof.  No brainer, right?)

Related related fact: Never, ever vomit Listerine.  Trust me, just don’t.

Anyway… I started cooking in earnest when the kids got old enough to eat real food, but we didn’t have the money nor patience to feed them real food in restaurants.  OK, that’s not entirely true.  We had the money, or at least Dana thought we did.  But I just can’t stand watching a kid order a $20 meal, or even a $10 meal, and then refuse to eat it because it “looks yucky.”  Dana was raised to spend money, I was raised to save money.  And since I basically control food around here, I started cooking for the family, thus saving us a lot of money.

Since we had raised the kids to be good eaters, I was able to experiment.  You like chili?  Let’s make chili.  You like stir fry?  Let’s make a stir fry.  Granted the kids disagreed on everything.  Bill liked spicy, Katie liked sweet.  Billy liked Mexican, Katie liked Asian.  But we figured it out, and in hindsight, both kids think I was a good cook.

Or at least that’s what they tell me.  Who knows what they really think.  Perhaps I will know the truth when they are no longer dependent on me for money.  And for the record, my stepkids also think I’m a good cook, which is truly amazing.  When they were little, they cried if I even spoke to them while they ate, and Dana ended up cooking for them: macaroni & cheese, rotini with frozen meatballs and cold Ragu, or chicken nuggets with rice pilaf and peas.  Now they look forward to my cooking, and Tim recently said that he’ll eat anything I cook. Now that’s music to an evil stepmother’s ears!

Meanwhile, it doesn’t hurt that we live a few miles from working farms.  Growing up in Brooklyn, I never understood the concept of fruit being “in season”.  Fruit came from the A&P, just like chicken and Bird’s Eye frozen vegetables and Froot Loops.  Although I was never allowed to buy Froot Loops, which fell squarely into the “too expensive and  crap” category of cool stuff.  Here in Westford, however, I’ve been able to treat the family to fresh picked fruits and vegetables in season, which was awesome (for me).  And sometimes we even bought Froot Loops, which was also awesome (for them).

Then, somewhere along the way, things got out of control.  I have actually said “Let’s not go out for dinner, I can make something better at home.”  Which sounds like something my father would have said, and that scares the crap out of me.   And while I’ve always been a foodie, it’s only recently that I’ve actually started dreaming about food.  One night I dreamt of ham sandwiches.  Then it was butter.  Then meatballs.  Then collard greens.  Really?  Collard greens?

Then I took this cooking thing to the next level.  I grew my own herbs and tomatoes, and I canned jams and pickles. I know the difference between a crisp and a buckle and a cobbler, and between a turnip and a rutabaga.  I taught a class at the community center called “Winter Vegetable Casseroles”.  I’m a freakin’ modern-day episode of Green Acres.

[Note: If you are not familiar with Green Acres, you can probably catch an episode or two on MeTV, or TVLand, or any other cable station dedicated to baby boom nostalgia.  And along with Green Acres and Gilligan’s Island and Bonanza, you can watch some very informative commercials for I’VEFALLENANDICAN’TGETUP buttons.]

But this summer I am not planting a garden, and, for 2 months, I will not cook. (I probably will, alas, still dream about food.  I love food.)  Meanwhile, I will eat junk food, and fast food, and whatever we find at the Quickie-Mart.  I may even be forced to skip a few meals, and I will have no control over, nor responsibility for, everything on anyone’s dinner plate.  I’m wondering how I’ll feel about cooking after we get back.