The Saga of my little red Schwinn

It was Fall of 2003. I was living in Logan on Canyon Rd down in "the island". It's called the island because its a low part of town with hills to the north and south, a canal on one side and the Logan river on the other. Its a really cool area and Kent and I enjoyed the year we spent there in our "beach house". Our beach house was so named because it was a small two story building with HUGE windows in the front and a cool balcony above. It was right up against the hillside below the canal and further uphill the USU campus. The hill behind our apartment was pretty thickly vegetated with lots of old trees and shrubs etc. The hillside was always muddy and we were pretty sure that we'd wake up one day buried in a mudslide (which, incidentally, happened next door to that apartment 6 years later and killed 2 people, crazy!) But I digress- The reason I'm writing all of this is to tell the story of the bike I found while living there. In a big pile of mud and leaves behind our place I happened to see some handle bars and a bit of tire exposed one day. I pulled the thing free from its resting place, cleaned it off a bit and was thrilled to have a functional bike. It was a woman's 1977 red Schwinn road bike and had probably spent the greater part of it's 26 years buried in that hillside. Needless to say, it was in extreme disrepair, with no rear brakes, a stuck gear shifter, rusty and squeaky everything, etc, etc. it was however, rideable and I rode it for the rest of that year before giving it to Angie so she could have transportation to work. She used it a little, but it went largely ignored until 2006 when Angie and I were married and I started riding it to school. I attached a basket and would run all sorts of errands in it. For all of it's problems, it was a great bike and I grew to really love it. For the last 12 months or so I've been shopping around for a new road bike. There are some really nice ones, but everything is sooo expensive! I really don't need a bike that's going to win the tour de France and it seems like there's no simple, inexpensive options for road bikes. So about a month ago, my heart turned towards my little red Schwinn. I decided to check a local bike repair shop and see what it would cost to "pimp my ride". It needed 2 new wheels (one was missing several spokes and the other was no longer spinning true), 2 new brake mechanisms altogether, all new cables and housings, a new chain, 2 new tires and tubes (both of the old whitewall tires were so weathered and frayed that they were ready to fall away any day), new shifters (which was a trick because Schwinn hasn't been making that style of shifter since the 80's), and a new manifold for the chain (I don't even know what that is or the importance of its function, but the old was was bent really bad and was eating up the chain). At the shop they all told me I would be better off to buy a new bike or check the DI for a bike with less problems, but I was really attached to this bike and the estimate they gave me was surpirisingly reasonable. So after 4 weeks in the shop I picked it up this morning and road it home! It rode so smoothly and nicely, everything works so well and it looks so great, I am super excited about it! I spent the morning cleaning it up really nice and even giving it a coat of wax. I just wanted to tell everyone my bike's story, include a picture and say "Look out world, I'm on the road again!!"