Celebrate Black Lives Sign in Patterson Park Along Eastern Avenue Near Lakewood

I’ve been spending a lot of time looking down lately. Classes started last week, and I have been busily prepping classes and fretting about prepping classes. If you live on social media, which I do, you’d think a semester of remote learning for college students was the end of the world, especially for professors. For me, it’s just what we’ve got to do for public health, and let’s all do our best to make the best of it. Look around, read the room: it’s fine. (Except when it’s not–access issues have never felt more urgent, but that’s another blog post.) That doesn’t mean I wasn’t wringing my hands the last couple weeks, but now that the semester is underway, I’m just trying to get in a rhythm and swing of things.

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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.