Life Off the Bike

From Left to Right, Back to Front: Chris, Brenda, Mike, Michael, Jack, Hilda, Cheryl, and Andy

20 February

Like a lot of other Freewheelers I've been doing other stuff while there's been snow on the ground. Unlike a lot of other Freewheelers I'm going to try to continue to do other stuff long after the snow is gone.

Two Fridays ago Jack and I went to New York City with Gordon and Terry. I brought my little point-and-shoot camera. Gordon, a photographer, bought the real thing.

We walked from Penn Station up 6th Avenue on our way to the International Center of Photography. I took these pictures at 42nd and 6th.



This one was a little farther along 6th Avenue.


We passed under a scaffold. From the sides came a small waterfall as snow melted from above. Shooting into the sun resulted in the drops looking more like one of the scratchy prints we'd just seen at the photography exhibit.


Gordon took this picture. Chaos and crowds were all around us at this intersection, but somehow he managed to get a picture that made the street look deserted:

Here's Gordon's take on the building at 42nd and 6th:

And of a window washer:

Here's the rainy scaffold, before the rainy section, on our way to the exhibit. Jack and I sure have a lot of hair. I'd gone nearly five months without a haircut at this point.

Gordon captured isolation on the subway ride downtown. I ruined the shot by smiling. He needs to edit me out.

Pylones, which is a Parisian store now in London and New York City, is a great place to window shop, or "leche vitrine" (literally, "lick glass," in French). It's even more fun to go inside. Gordon took a few pictures of the window displays.

Eiffel Tower-shaped cheese graters and springy people memo holders:

Squid-shaped whisks:

I have to confess that I've amassed quite a collection of Pylones merchandise over the years. It's funky yet utilitarian. Take a look. It's fun.

We came home from the City laden with nuts, dried fruit, candy, coffee beans, and a few things from Pylones.

*****

Today I was supposed to lead a ride, but the roads were still narrowed from the snow, which is down to about a foot in my neighborhood. I'm trying to do some outdoorsy things that Jack will want to do, so we decided to try a walk on the D&R Canal towpath in Lambertville. We got a pretty good group together.

The towpath was still covered in mashed-down snow.


It wasn't as bad as I'd feared but I'd been hoping for better conditions. That didn't stop anyone from walking the four miles to Stockton. We hung out there for a while, flitting between the general store and the brand new farmer's market.

Jack was drawn to the wine store next door. I found a local organic coffee roaster and two kinds of beans I've never tried. For those keeping track, that's a pound from my NYC trip and 1.5 pounds today. I don't drink the stuff every day, so it tends to pile up.

Michael had the brilliant idea of walking back to Lambertville via the rural roads on the ridge above Route 29. We took Brookville Hollow to Seabrook, which dumped us back on Route 29 just outside of Lambertville.

I stopped for pictures on Seabrook.

Hilda stopped too when she saw this field. Then we had to catch up. "It's easier on a bike," she said. We caught up eventually.



This is on the down-slope going into Lambertville:


I have no doubt we'd have made a detour to get there, but since it was on the way we stopped for a while at Rojo's for coffee. I got some to drink, but I didn't buy any beans to take home. Honest.

Jack and I drove back to Stockton so he could take some more time in the wine shop. He found some worthy hooch, so, despite the snowy towpath, the trip was worth something to him.

When things dry out we want to try walking from Frenchtown to Milford. And I'll do it on a good biking day. As difficult as it is for some hard-core cyclists to imagine or say, there's more to life than bicycling. Really.