Saddle up.

I think I've retorted once already how much I enjoy this hippy community called Missoula, but last week gave me another reason to celebrate it's unique culture. For the sixtieth time this year it was walk/bike/bus week. For those of you out-of-towners, this is where the entire city promotes alternative means of transportation and severely condones the use of any other vehicle besides the bio-bus that consumes old McDonald's fry-juice for fuel. Ordinarily I can't keep track of the frequency by which our city holds these events so I simply drive my car year round, regardless of the icy stares of pedestrians strewn about this activist town.

Last week however, I participated. I'd love to say it was because I saw the value a car-fast would have on the quality of the o-zone layer, but I unfortunately have to report it was simply because I couldn't afford gas. The ridiculous price of fuel forced me to pedal along with the thousands of unshaven bikers in a not-so-deliberate-participation-of-the-walk-bike-bus-run-slackrope-pogo stick-tie yourself to the back of a sea turtle (thanks Jamie Kelly) week.

The only thing that I discovered over the process was that bicycles are terribly dangerous. I think I was almost wiped out by two SUVs, one BIO-BUS, four Hondas and a rather portly professor on a Schwin. Perhaps the next time Missoula throws an alternative mode of transportation fiesta, they should teach non-participants how to drive. Or they should provide me with another kind of bike... a Harley-Davidson. Now that's the kind of activist week I could REALLY get into...