sum-sum-summertime!

It is full-out summer 'round these parts! The sun is out. The humidity is high.  Lots of cyclists are out on the streets.

The Full Hands family has tried to take full advantage of events that come with the season.  Somehow riding our bikes to such happenings seem to add that much more fun to the outings.

Take, for example, our weekend.

On Saturday night, there was a free concert on New Haven's Green; the New Haven Symphony Orchestra (NHSO) played Peter and the Wolf and had a wonderful storyteller accompany the music.  We had spent a busy day swimming but came back home for a quick dinner and hopped on our bikes for the ride downtown.  As with other big events with large crowds, the cargo bikes come in handy as we don't need to worry about finding parking, can often navigate in areas that cars cannot, and don't need to schlep our stuff from the car to the site as we ride right up to the Green with all our things on board.   We arrived  after many folks had already staked out and set up their spots. Fortunately, through a lucky incident, we had VIP tickets (it was a *free* concert, mind you) that allowed us to sit in this fenced-in area right near the stage. Unfortunately for many, there were some technical difficulties that I suspect made hearing the music and storytelling a bit hard, but there we were--- right up front, hanging out on our batik spread from our Peace Corps days, lounging in our Crazy Creek chairs.   We could watch the individual musicians which our beginning string instrumentalists loved and were able to see the storyteller with all his incredible props. (Gotta say that the cat made from the handbag was my favorite!)   When the concert ended, we gathered our belongings, donned our helmets, chatted with some folks interested in our cargo bikes, and zipped off easily, heading home.

The next day, we decided to go car-free to our very first Bridgeport Bluefish minor league baseball game.  We rode to the train station, parked our bikes alongside many others (an excellent thing), and took the short train ride to Bridgeport.  Despite it being another really hot day, we could all easily walk from the station to the ball park where we enjoyed great seats, good action, a low-key, fun crowd, an especially popular mascot, and even time for the kids to run the bases after the game.  We did have to wait about a half hour for the train on the way back to New Haven, but the boys held up well, and we felt great about leaving the car parked at home.