theme song: 500 miles

It's August 31st, and I've officially bicycled 1,000 miles this summer while commuting. I'm "simplifying" the math in a few ways, but I started bicycling on June 1st and after traveling 82.7 miles each week for 3 months, I've finally reached 1,075 miles total. I can think of only 1 song that's appropriate for today's theme song.

"When I come home, yeah I know I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be the man who comes back home with you.
And if I grow old, well I know I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be the man who's growing old with you.
But I would walk 500 miles, and I would walk 500 more
just to be the man who walked 1,000 miles to fall down at your door."

The weather is already turning cool. I checked weather.com and found this record (click photo to see larger version) of temperatures in September for my postal code. The record low temperature here is freezing as early as September 3rd, which arrives on Saturday. Luckily, I don't expect the weather to be that cold, since I don't have any cold weather bicycle clothing.

I need to get a vehicle soon. I called to turn on my car insurance on Monday. The account was kept in "frozen" status. I've already gone to a nearby lot to ask about test driving one of their vehicles.

Nevertheless, my commute by bicycle did some good.

• I lost 20 pounds and have easily kept it off.
• I saved $183 on gasoline.
• I saved $118 on car insurance.
• I saved 444,000 kg of total CO2 emissions (operating costs).

I never did acquire that strength and stamina that I wanted. I never set any speed records during my commute. I was actually passed a few weeks ago by a roller blader. A roller blader! I still did a good thing this summer, though.  I wish I could continue, but winters here are too harsh.