Burlington Part Two

Finding a groove and Nolan's stolen bike. Oh and this awesome vector drawing Elliott made of himself.

Hitchin and unhitchin

We packed and hitched up the camper and headed to our new spot across the campground. Then the next and following day we repeated the routine but only to move within a couple sites of the last! This is a result of the way they reserve spots. For one of the moves it appeared we were in a stand off with the guy who’s spot we were moving to. Erin said, “you don’t think he’s waiting to get in ours and we’re waiting to get into his do you?” It was almost the case. He was moving to the site next to us and we were moving in to his site. I was now prompted to just randomly ask people if they’re moving to our spot soon in an attempt to make our own reservation system and avoid hitching and moving. Yes, they thought I was weird. Yes, no one was moving into our spot. We made the moves and eventually made it to one spot for the remaining four days. It was a nice spot. Fast internet.

I can’t find my bike

At this point the boys were pretty well embedded into the Burlington skate scene and were spending long days there hanging with the locals. They would ride their bikes to the skate park, hang out for a bit, then get on the shuttle that drove them around town to hit other local skate spots. During one of these excursions Nolan’s unattended bike was lifted from the skatepark. We purposefully collected crusty old 1990s mountain bikes before we left and hacked them up to our liking. They’re ugly and rusty and don’t even need to be locked up! Until they do. He was pretty bummed out about it when they got home and let us know. Not sure exactly why but I was super bummed out about it. And really mad. Not at Nolan, of course, but at myself and some jerks out there! We have bike locks ready to go, but I didn’t enforce or really even think of it. Some jerks ruined my idyllic town!

So I spent the next two hours riding my own bike around Burlington looking for Nolan’s bike. This was a ridiculous plan. Here I was riding around and zooming toward large clumps of bikes around street lights and in front of shops and restaurants and then slowly creeping by scanning furiously. After a while I noticed some people gathering. I thought it was a concert and a perfect spot for some jerk to dump off Nolan’s bike.

There wasn’t a concert - just a heavy dose of perspective. My random zig-zagging around had taken me to an anti-hate rally in the middle of town on the steps of City Hall. My emotions reversed course. As I absorbed the scene I went from, “people are such jerkheads!” to “I love people!” Then someone’s husky got loose I ditched my bike and tried to help corral it but this other person grabbed it. The owner was relieved and as the helper walked off I yelled, “Nice job, dude!” Helper was a woman. ANNND that’s about enough rally for me for one day. Summary: angry bike hunting to inspired rally attendee to embarrassingly bad gender recognition skills.

Fast forward twenty-four hours and Nolan is on the phone whispering loudly to me, “MY BIKE IS RIGHT BEHIND ME.” By the time I got to him, his local buddies had confronted the thieves and got his bike back! We rewarded them with some cheeseburgers.

Other highlights for this week

• North beach days
• Finally got the annoying metal on metal rubbing sound taken care of on the truck (a clip on the right front brake pad came loose)
• Talent skatepark
• Set up shop in the outside kitchen. I love standing and working on the laptop. The height of my desk varies from spot to spot based on how level or not the ground is.
• Habanero and onion scrambled egg bagel sandwiches
• Elliott was good for quick bike runs to Hannafords down the bike path. He went for a detour to take in the water views and instead found some weird field of cabins that freaked him out
• Lots of bike riding and skateboarding