Biking Success, Boston

Biking success, Boston
Hot, humid, sunny. Kids don’t want to walk but we don’t want to sit in a hotel in Boston, so Marci and I begin a hunt for bicycle possibilities. The day before, I had walked the Charles River trail and thought if we could rent bikes and bike that trail it would be safe and we would make it to Cambridge and we wouldn’t have to deal with whining. After calling around, the best bike place we could locate that had a tandem, was within walking distance, and we could get to the Charles River trails without much riding on the road was Urban Adventure biking on Atlantic Ave.
We rented a tandem and four bikes, got our helmet and headed out. The ride does require riding on the road for about 1.5 miles but then you can get on the River Trail. The trail was a bit cooler than the road and there was some shade. We crossed the River at the Massachusetts Bridge because it had a bike trail, but we ended up riding on the sidewalk because we thought it was too scary to have the kids on the road next to the trucks, etc. roaring by.
We wound up in Central Square at Harvard and realized the bike shop had not given us our locks. So, Marci went to hunt up a lock while I went to hunt up a place to lock up four bikes and a (very big) tandem. Our plan was to eat at Café of India and across the street was a small library for the University and behind that was a large bike rack. Here we ended up parking our bikes and then headed to the restaurant.
We were all very hot and tired and ready for some water and food. I’ll write about the food in my Café of India post.
For the ride back, we crossed one of the smaller bridges near Harvard and rode on the otherside of the river. The disadvantage was that we didn’t have any shade for a bit on this side of the river, but eventually we did get under some trees. We were able to find some drinking fountains to fill up our one water bottle, thank goodness, because it was hot. Unfortunately, on our way back we missed part of the trail near the Museum of Science and ended up on the road longer than before.
We returned the bikes about 3:45 (we had rented them for four hours and the whole excursion took us about 4 hours 15 minutes). Next door to the bike shop was a restaurant called The Living Room where we all wobbled in to get a cold drink. Rakesh, in contrast to the rest of us, was still raring to go and dancing around the restaurant. The Living Room was like a bar in the front with couches and then a formal restaurant. The kids ordered hamburgers and mac and cheese. The hamburger patty was pretty gross and had that strange texture that industrial hamburgers have but Rakesh ate most of it. French fries were spiced waffle fries which we all liked. The mac and cheese was penne with four cheeses and seemed too dry, but the kids ate most of it and Kesh finished it off.