Two Rides

That was the plan, anyway. I had an appointment to ride with a friend, a recent acquaintance really, a fellow Rabbi. but he couldn't ride until 2 PM and I usually like to ride earlier in the day. today being spectacularly gorgeous I was especially anxious to get out. So I planned to ride in the morning, stop somewhere for lunch and eventually meet up. I did get in a little more sleep than usual and was on the road at 10 AM with the idea of riding slowly and getting at least as far as Conshohocken. I wanted to take some pictures of the devastating fire that occurred at the apartment complex along the Schuylkill just off the trail. That is what I did.




These two shots give you a pretty good idea of the damage that this 8 alarm blaze caused. I would imagine that these buildings are beyond repair and will have to come down before anything new can replace them, but I'm no expert.

This next shot shows how close the edge of the complex is to the construction project next door where the fire was begun by a worker's torch.



After taking the photos I turned back and went to the Manayunk dinner for lunch and then rode back into town ending up in front of the Art Museum, our meeting place. Though I had checked my email at lunch and my timing for the day was very good, I did have a few minutes before 2 PM so I checked it again. Not surprisingly there was an email saying that my friend had to cancel because of work. Rabbis are notorious for this since so many things can come up at the last minute. I really wasn't disturbed. I hadn't been much in the mood to keep riding out to
Valley Forge or someplace like that. The ride to Conshohocken had been fine, the lunch had been fine; I just decided to ride another loop around the drives and head home. Which is what I did and then lubed the chains on my bike and Annie's.