I didn’t get to ride my bicycle around much this past week due to a heavy workload. Fortunately, part of that workload was learning how to use software to make movies! It was so much fun, and I spent several days making my first tiny film, which you see here. But what making a movie about riding a bike around East Baltimore really made me want to do was, well, ride a bike around East Baltimore, so that’s what I did today. I first rode up to Waverly to meet friends I knew in New Orleans who were in town for a visit, and they wanted to check out the Great Blacks in Wax Museum, over on East North Ave. in the Oliver neighborhood. Their Baltimore hosts offered me a ride in their car, but oh my, I couldn’t bear to get off the bike on a sunny winter day, no way, no how. I rolled down the hill and to the left, we did our tour of the museum, and then I said my goodbyes and headed east to nowhere in particular. I took a right and a left, and rode on Federal to the end, which took me to Erdman–not exactly bike-friendly territory (I know, I know, I can ride anywhere, but I also have feelings). I pedaled quickly through the light to see what those candy-colored houses across the way were up to. The cul-de-sac was sandwiched between tall cell phone towers and Archbishop Curley High’s sports fields, and I did my turns around it to the edges, where it’s still pushing out in the footprint of a baseball field (which reminds me–less than 3 weeks before pitchers and catchers report! But that’s a different story). It felt so familiar, and as I took another left onto Cherry Blossom Drive, I saw the Habitat For Humanity signs and volunteers, and it hit me–these are the colors of the houses in Musician’s Village in New Orleans. Here, though, they are stuck together, like the row houses everywhere else here. I left this lovely new neighborhood and took a right on Erdman and a left on Bonview Ave. to see the bon view at the end of it, and after that I lost the ability to place myself on the map. I pedaled around street after street of those brick bungalows of old planned communities, hopped on a bike path through Herring Run Park, and finally managed to get myself totally lost. And then I hit a bike lane and was on Argonne, and then there was Morgan State–I was found! Or not. It took a little mapping, but I made it home eventually, just in time, grateful for a sunny Saturday in Baltimore, and for my bike.