Monday, March 03, 2014

how we're getting around

As I've shared before, over the last few years I've felt a growing call to do what I can to try to live in a way that shows more care for the Earth. This is our home, the place God put in our care. We are part of "nature"; it is not a tool for us to use as we wish. What we do to the planet, we do to ourselves.

With that in mind, I wanted to share a couple things about what we've been doing lately to try to live that out, not only with our beliefs but with our actions.

Yesterday, we leased a Nissan Leaf, which is a fully electric car. We've been thinking about this for a while, but until recently, it hasn't seemed practical or affordable. At this point, leases are extremely affordable. It's easy to charge at home with no extra equipment required, except the cord you receive with the car. It rides a lot like a Toyota Prius, but never kicks on the gas! It's really quiet. It actually beeps when you back up, so that pedestrians have some warning. So far we really like it! It can go over 100 miles on a charge if you're driving carefully (i.e., not testing its acceleration), and there are charging stations all over now.

When we're not in our car, we have some new wheels of the 2-wheel variety as well! For our eldest's 7th birthday, he got a bike with gears so he can keep up a little better. (In the photo, he was just trying to bike around to see what it felt like in the snow...we didn't actually make him ride it to get places in the snow!) Also, our youngest is 3, and the other day I tried him out on the trailer bike, and he can reach the pedals! He's been enjoying riding around town. Usually I still bring the bike trailer to put all our stuff in. This means we can go to the grocery store and get a whole load rather than having to limit what we can carry home. It's great to get good exercise as we do the things we need to do throughout the day, and to know we're not spewing as many fossil fuels into the air each time we drive somewhere.

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