a bike adventure and the Chinese garden

Today's adventure was a waterfront bike ride, which proved surprisingly difficult to pull off. For starters, I couldn't get air into the bike tires, which were sadly flat after a winter of disuse. For whatever reason, our bike pump seemed to be sucking the air out rather than pumping it in. After 40 minutes of frustration, I gave up and loaded the bikes onto the car rack. We arrived at REI and I had the bike technicians there help me out. It would be embarrassing to be so incompetent, except I have no pride when it comes to fixing things.

But with air in our tires, we were ready to go. Onwards! We started biking toward the waterfront and the day, which had been moderate and sunny, suddenly turned cold and rainy. Really rainy, with a good brisk wind. We got soaked; the troops revolted. We turned back and found Bowery Bagels, where toasted bagels with cream cheese and lox warmed up our bodies and souls enough to venture out once more. It was once again sunny, so we made it to the Japanese cherry trees - gorgeous and in full bloom! We headed across the Steel Bridge, intending to go south along the Eastbank Esplanade, but it turned out that the river's edge trail was flooded and the trail was closed. Eep! Back again to the north side, to bike along the more crowded Waterfront park. We managed to eke out a solid ride, enough for the first one of the season, but it was at times a real struggle.

The children were, to be frank, more than ready to go home and get cozy reading their piles of books, but I was still interested in city adventures. We went to the Lan Su Chinese Garden and wandered around for an hour, enjoying the flowers and structures, the carp, and the special exhibit of botanical art. Liesl became very interested, helped along by the scavenger hunt the garden provided, and looked at everything with me. Sebastian sat in the sun on a bench and read his book (spot him in the red hoodie below!). You win some, you lose some... maybe next time he'll be more in the mood.

We were finally ready to head home after the garden - back to the books, and playing at the field, and a chance for me to make a lemon blueberry cake.