The sun was out today, and oh my, but that can lift a girl’s mood. I took the bike and headed down the hill to the Hippodrome for volunteer usher training (yes, I’m already acting like a retiree). I’ve been through downtown, but I’ve never been through that neighborhood, and today it was bustling with people shopping, street-preaching, waiting for the bus, and just generally enjoying the sunshine. I was stuck inside for two hours attempting to pay attention to the seating chart and learning something called “flashlight etiquette,” but then I got to ride around again. I headed up to the Maryland Historical Society to avail myself of my as yet unused membership, and got there just in time to catch the Maryland Historical Players Living History presentation of John Wilkes Booth. It was very dramatic, and as I was the only audience, I studiously remained rapt. The exhibit was fantastic–a piece of the gallows from which John Brown was hung???–and I’ll be back for the rest of it, but the place needs a bike rack. I continued my ride downtown and around, following the signs to neighborhoods I haven’t seen yet, and I ended up at O’Donnell Square in Canton where I settled in with ice cream and watched the neighbors walk their dogs and just generally enjoyed the pleasure of a sunny Saturday on a bicycle with nowhere in particular to be. I rode home via Patterson Park and the 35th annual Ukrainian Festival, a surprise ride around East Baltimore until I remembered the sun sets in the West. Pedal, pedal, pedal, and I was back on Guilford, a stop at the grocery, and home again. Lovely.