Au Revoir, Voiture

It's official: We're car-free!

Stephen, Jeff's Freewheel colleague/biking buddy, and his girlfriend Melissa drove off tonight in the trusty old Jeep Cherokee that eats a giant hole in the ozone layer every time we start the engine we've driven for nearly 10 years. It carried us faithfully up to Tahoe and back for scads of snowboarding adventures, saw me safely to Mexico and back on a solo road trip, and most recently, it survived another long-haul drive down I-5 to see family in southern California at Christmastime. How's that for reliability?

I hope Stephen and Melissa get another 10 years out of it; they ought to, since it barely had 100,000 miles on the odometer, and in spite of its slightly beat-up exterior, we kept up with regular maintenance and check-ups at the mechanic's.

Now, we just need to figure out what to do with all the other forms of transportation we've got lurking in the garage; between the two of us, Jeff and I have approximately 11 bicycles -- 13 if you count the two we have stored at the pretty stone house behind the old chappelle in Penboch, south-west of Vannes. One thing's for sure: they're not all coming with us. (Don't tell Jeff, though.)