(by Pat)Today, we're doing our grocery shopping as if we had no car (for practice). The rain's giving us a little bit of a break this morning, so I biked to Haymarket for our produce. Haymarket is a terrific outdoor produce market that offers fruit and veggies that didn't sell to restaurants that week (it's sort of like the discount outlet of produce). Today I paid $25 for 30 pounds of fruit and veggies. It took me 25 minutes to get there, 20 minutes to get home (the whole trip, including shopping was 80 minutes), which is much faster than I would have gotten by T. It's not feasible to shop at Haymarket by car, since there's no parking, or if I paid to park, it'd eat up the savings. Google Maps says that it's 3.7 miles one way to Haymarket (the walking directions feature of Google Maps is really helpful for look up bike routes, BTW). On an early Saturday morning, traffic is no problem, and it's a pretty fun ride. If I go with my son, I go a longer route that takes us via the Charles River (beautiful but longer).
It's nice to save money and get exercise at the same time, no doubt about it.