Silly Davis

I think it's fair to say that the city where I live is one-of-a-kind. To begin, it's both a college town and a hippie haven. Davis is located in the middle of an agricultural hotbed, in close proximity to expansive farmland and wine country. The university's research includes everything from beer brewing to breeding cows with windows in their stomachs. And Davis is widely known for its green living.

It's an understatement to say that Davis residents like their bikes ~ we love our bikes.


The bicycle is our favored mode of transportation AND our city's logo. We have children on bikes, adults on bikes, old-fashioned bikes, and bike races throughout the year. We even house the U.S. Bicycling Hall of Fame.



I know all of these things, but I was still slightly surprised when I saw this on the street:



What you're looking at is a bicycle with a home-built wagon attached to it. I'm not sure why the wagon is necessary, since it doesn't seem big enough to carry anything beyond the single person on the bike. There's a little note posted on the back, probably with some social action message on it. (Although I was never able to get close enough to read it.) And the guy peddling it thought nothing of riding all around town in it.

You see, this is Davis. And in Davis nothing, particularly nothing related to green transportation, is all that out of the ordinary. Take our double-decker bus that frequents the most popular route for students to travel to campus:



Looks efficient, right?