Let's bike 14 km she said...it would be fun she said...

I have no regrets but I may have slightly overestimated our kid's biking abilities. Little Bro recently ditched the training wheels on his bike and we have never done a family bike ride farther from the parking lot of Central Park to the playground  (so that's like 0.5 km). Our friend recommended the West Dyke trail and said she did it with her 4-year-old so I thought 'well you never know until you try..." The kids are always have awesome attitudes to take on challenges and we biked a km or so around the park there before starting the trail. So far so good.

We were over 6 km in by the time we had reached Tera Nova park. I thought we could buy lunch along the way but alas, it's not like the Stanley park Sea Wall and alas, there are no food trucks along the way. It was already 12:30pm and I was starting to think about whether what species of flowers are edible but decided to just keep going.

We made it to Terra Nova park and rationed out the apples and smushed and warm cheese string that we had packed. Note to self: don't pack cheese string at the bottom of a back pack on a hot day. The kids had renewed energy once they saw the playground and were like monkeys in their natural habitat.

By the time we started to head back towards the truck it was way past lunch. We had about 6 km left to go and the kids were getting tired and hungry. If you have Small People you know this is an exceptionally terrifying combination.  I resented the fact that I did not pack gummies. Note to self: Stash gummies in every pair of pants and shorts I own when I get home. So alas, without gummies to randomly distribute along the way, we resort to distracting them with games of  'I Spy' and "Fill in the blank to the song". After singing every kid song I could come up and when I exhausted every rhyme I knew to "Down the Bay" we still had 2 more km to go. By now, the kids were stopping every 15 seconds for a water break and by my rough calculation, it would be nightfall before we got back to have lunch.

Super Dad even tries to bike while holding Little Bro's bike in one hand and precariously holding Little Bro on his back. Little Bro clinging on and deciding between the benefit of scoring a free ride and the fear of falling off Daddy's back on a moving bike so after less than a km, both gave up on the idea. Good effort though Super Dad. Instead, with 12 km completed of the 14 km trek, we decided to call it quits and Super Dad just rode the rest of the way back himself, got the truck and came back to rescue the famished family.

So we were a couple km from finishing the 14 km trek but I guess that's not a bad for little 4-year old and 6-year old legs. My motto is always is that it's better to shoot for the stars and miss than to not aim for the stars at all and I think we at least made it close to the Milky Way...