I had a day with no deadlines on Tuesday, a rare one in the past month. That meant I got to spend my morning finishing up a task I’d been avoiding for a few weeks, and then I hopped on the bike and headed south and east to complete one of those tasks I am middle class enough to do: register for TSA Pre Check so I can be one of those people I have been sneering at for the past couple of years who bypass the serfs on their way to the front of the airport security line.

I took the long way, taking my turns on streets I don’t usually turn on in hopes of seeing something new (though it’s always new, because nothing stays the same, of course). I ended up where I usually end up when I head east: smack in the middle of Middle East, the neighborhood Johns Hopkins is turning in to Eager Park. I’ve only been watching this redevelopment for the past five years, and in just that time the marks are all over this place.

What stopped me on this ride were the rows of brick townhomes with back decks stretching along McDonough Street. Luxury Townhomes starting in the high $200s–you have to ride your bike around here to understand how strange that sounds in this neighborhood. And they are sold out already, because people want to live in the city so they can live near their work, and Hopkins has all the jobs, and they’ve booted out the folks who used to live here, and now there’s room for the suburbs to move right back in. It’s an old story, and we’re watching it happen, live.

And then I zig zagged to Highlandtown, dropped some cash to buy evidence that I am who I say I am, renewed my library card, and rode home on Baltimore Street. A good hill and I’m flying at the speed traffic’s supposed to go. Summer’s over, but there’s tastes of it here and there.