Dashing Through The Snow

So this weekend we decided to get our Christmas tree. We could not have picked a worse weekend to do so (weather-wise) but at least the snow and sub-freezing temps made it easy to want to stay home and decorate it. When we lived up in Indian Hills we would go and chop our own trees down, this made for a memorable and enjoyable outdoor experience. Each tree typically came after some hard fought experience or struggle with the chainsaw etc. No longer living in the hills and desiring a more urban Christmas tree experience, we chose to go the traditional route of getting a tree from a lot. This year though, in order to spice it up a bit we opted to go down to the local ACE Hardware and pick a tree up from their lot: by bicycle.

My wife had her doubts about the logistics of getting a tree home by bike while also riding in snow. And in fairness to her skepticism, my optimism almost got the best of me starting out, but after getting used to the way the trailer pulled through the snow it actually made for relatively easy riding. We rode the couple blocks down to ACE and picked out a nice 7 foot tall fir of some kind; hardly offsetting the tree's travel from Wisconsin by our biking (next year we'll bike to a local lot.) The lady at the register kindly offered to call someone to help us load our tree which drew some knowing smirks from Kate and I, at which we then let her into our little secret. "Call us if you can't get home," she offered, while laughing at the prospect of some guy riding his bike home with a tree on the back of it. Sans help, we easily loaded our tree up onto my modified Burley trailer. All we had to do was lay it down on the frame, bungeed it and voila we were in route home. It took a bit of balancing to get started as the rear tire of the bike wanted to lift up under the weight of the tree, but once I got going it was smooth pedaling. The added weight actually helped with traction in the snow so the ride back went a little easier than the ride there.

We got home and Kate snapped some pictures to commemorate the occasion and that was pretty much all of it but the trimming. I have to say that I've probably pulled heavier loads, but the awkwardness of the tree and its length certainly made this one a bit different. And hands down the stares we got from passing cars were much funnier than any other trip I've made by bike. If only we had bigger ceilings we could have got one of those monster trees; that would have been pretty sweet.