We met a friend at View Ridge Park this morning and it seemed like a perfect bus-to/bike-home trip. I usually use the Metro trip planner for bus trips, though I don’t find it user-friendly. It didn’t present me with a good option for today, but Google maps did (or so I thought).

We biked a mile onto the unversity to catch the 71, but the bike route was pretty sucky, involving a steep gravelly hill and having to walk the bike off a curb. Furthermore, Google didn’t know the 9:04 bus was an express so it blew by our stop. The driver noticed my flabbergasted look and was kind enough to point ahead to the next stop. I threw the kids back on the bike, slung on my bag, had the rear kid hold our snack bag since I’d already folded up the baskets, and flew after the bus. It seemed like he was waiting for us, but as soon as we reached the tail of the bus, off he went again. So we chased him around a corner and caught up for the next stop.

If that wasn’t enough, the little kid (in his bike helmet still, by the way) tripped on the way to his bus seat and got a huge lump on his forehead. Not our day! But the two blocks to the park were nice and flat and the ride home was fine. And the stop we ended up meeting the bus at (University Way NE and NE 43rd St) was a nice big covered stop that will be easy to reach in the future.

The weather turned gorgeous by the afternoon so we hopped back on the bike to check out Baldolero in Tangletown–a lovely slightly uphill on the way there, downhill on the way home ride. The outside area was unfortunately 21+, but the non-bar side was empty so the kids had the run of the place. The food was meh.