Repairing a Water Main at Centre & Cathedral

I spent the morning reading and writing and finishing this and that before I had to head to the mechanic’s to pick up my *gasp* car with its new windshield and scrubbed headlights; the State of Maryland has some stringent standards before they let you drive a car on their roads. Another hour and a half waiting at the MVA and I can officially drive here! But oh my goodness, I don’t want to. I headed straight home to get the bike to run some errands. Seriously, why drive for errands when you can ride a bike, especially when The Earth finally turned the lights on? Continue reading

Johns Hopkins Hospital at Broadway & Monument

The new semester starts this week, and I am a busy, busy bee. I worked and worked and worked from the second I woke up, and by the time I got home, I was exhausted. And that’s the perfect time for a bicycle ride. Really, a bike ride just brushes all that other stuff away, and that’s what I did as I zipped around the neighborhood, saying my how you doin’s and taking the sidewalk on that sketchy turn onto Bonaparte, and took Broadway from North Avenue down to Fells Point. I had no idea that’s where the street ended–I’m still new in town. Continue reading

People Filling Sandbags at Fells Point

After a long day waiting for this, listening to that, and setting up my wireless network, I hopped on the bike and rode down to the harbor to see what folks were doing to prepare for the hurricane that’s coming. I took a left on Pratt only to be stopped by a car in my bike lane. Grrrr. Turns out it was a car waiting to load up on sandbags–my bad. The city trucked sand down to the harbor and folks were lining up in their cars to take turns shoveling. I rode over to Fells Point and ran into some serious gridlock–same thing. I snapped this picture, and I wasn’t the only one taking it. People were milling about, watching, some having better ideas about how to organize the sand distribution, others remembering the last time a storm came through here. But mostly folks were pretty sure they could organize the sand distribution better. Not me–please never put me in charge of any kind of disaster management. I can barely organize my cats. I hope these sandbags keep these people’s homes and businesses dry this weekend. I rode back up the hill as the sun was going down, hoping that wasn’t my last ride for awhile.

A Ship at Dock From Across Fells Point

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I spent most of my day on foot, running errands and killing time before J. picked me up to host me for my last couple of nights in Baltimore. My evening task? Get my rental bike from Charles Village to Linwood. Don’t mind if I do! As a biker of habit, I already have a preferred route to downtorn, so I pedaled down Guilford to Falls Road and then along whatever that street is, avoiding the steel plates. I took a left at the harbor and stopped at the Civil War Trail sign at Jones Falls. I think. I followed the signs to Fells Point, because everyone keeps telling me to go there, and they were right. I stopped along the way to read about Civil War history and the Katanya Massacre–the Poles are an impressive people–and then I was in Boston. Or Fells Point. I snapped this picture at the end of the pier, happy to have a view unimpeded by the Rusty Scupper, the Ritz Carleton development, and those dragon boats–an excellent reminder that Baltimore is still a working harbor for the military and industry. I was wilting, but there was Christopher, selling two bottles of water for a dollar, and I chugged them down in front of the building where apparently some bright minds dreamt up the television programme, Homicide. Maybe I should watch that. Anyway. Then it was time to ride in the general direction I thought I was going, and suddenly I was at Patterson Park, so I did a loop. My host lives just past the park, so I figured I would make it home if I just kept riding. Yeah, a rectangle has four sides, which means eight ways to be “just past the park,” and all I remembered was that I was looking for a street whose name had historical resonance that I found interesting–I need to write stuff down! I rode around hoping I’d find my bearings, eventually giving up and checking my smartyphone’s map. Yeah, it’s the other way. I pedaled slowly uphill till I made it to Potomac Street, took a right, and was home for the day. I have so much getting lost in my future. Lucky, lucky me.