Philadelphia

This post revolves mostly around hosts. Brant has been a warm showers member for four years and we have hosted many cyclists. We've never had a bad experience, and we usually meet wonderful people who know how nice it is to get a warm shower and a bed while on the road, and who also have a common love for cycling and seeing the world at a slower pace. 

We had organized a warm showers host for our time in Philadelphia, which was dictated by how long it would take Bilenky Cycle Works to repair Brant's kickstand plate, something that has been broken since Kansas. Alexis, one of the hosts we contacted, wrote us back encouraging us to stay with her. Once in the city, we phoned her to see what her plans were for the day and when we could meet up at her house. A voicemail later, we realized we were staying with one disorganized, stressed out cookie.



We pedaled to her house, located in a slightly sketchy neighborhood. The house was in total disarray. She had warned us earlier that day that things were a bit of a mess, but we all were not ready for the actual thing. She had five cats, and the house was their domain, and no one else's. A cat house. The kitchen hadn't been cleaned for months, maybe more. We sat with Alexis for a few minutes, hearing about her travels, and her upcoming move to Maine for grad school. Minutes in, she declared that she wished she could get to know us, but really needed some alone time and left to find it in the streets. We were left key-less in the house; with nowhere to go without a key, we decided that the only thing to do was to clean the place. It was a selfish endeavor, really. We wanted to cook dinner, and in order to do that, we had to clean the kitchen. Two hours later, the floors were cream colored instead of beige, the counters were a vibrant yellow instead of brown, the floors were mopped, and the pile of dishes in the sink vanished. The random clod of dirt and grass in the middle of the living room was swept, and the house began to feel a little more homey.

We cooked up some burrito fixings in preparation for the homemade salsa Jason gave us earlier that morning.

Alexis came home in the middle of our meal and we told her to make herself a burrito and join us; she did. Her boyfriend Seth came home, and he did the same. 

We all were waiting for some comment, "Who cleaned the kitchen?" or "It looks nice in here," or anything. Nothing. Not a word. Which was very interesting because the kitchen makeover made a night and day sort of difference.

We ate our meal together, and you could see George, Brant, and I all thinking, "No way do they not notice?!"

That night, I couldn't sleep, trying to devise a way to get us out of this uncomfortable situation.  It wasn't that they were horrible, they weren't, we just felt in the way, a little unwelcome, and awkward. I sent late night emails on my phone to a few nice sounding warm showers hosts, explaining our situation with the bike etc. We woke the next morning with many positive responses.
Caitlin Martin, a host who had biked across the country last summer with her partner, Kevin, invited us to stay with them. They were even available in the morning to have us drop our stuff off, so that Brant could pedal a bag-less bike to Bilenky and take public transit back to downtown.

The ride to Bilenky Cycle Works was a cultural experience. I have read books that talk about the poverty of Philadelphia, but biking through the miles of abandoned buildings and dilapidated housing that comprises most of the neighborhoods just outside of downtown Philly, we were able to feel the sprawl of poverty that I have only felt traveling outside of the United States. Philadelphia bares the mark of old industry. Huge industrial complexes with broken windows no longer hum the sound of employment and industry, and instead there's a tangible sorrow. Along our ride, however, we saw the marks of communities reclaiming and taking ownership over their streets--murals adorn many abandoned buildings, telling cultural stories, and many vacant lots are verdant community gardens. These were happy sights.

After the four long miles wiggling through the parts of Philadelphia that affluent white kids usually don't venture through, we arrived to the Bilenky Cycle Works hideaway. This famed bike fabricator lies in the back corner of a dead end street in a thriving industrial neighborhood in North Philly, a part of Philly that resembles a bustling Lima, Peru. It's grundgey, yet colorful, and full of handymen, smog shops, automobile repair shops, tire shops, and working junk yards, among other necessary industries.

Bilenky said they could repair Brant's frame and have it back to him in two days. So we spent a few hours sitting outside the shop; Brant disassembled his bike for repair while George and I mooched off the shop's wifi.   Afterwards, we hopped on a metro train and headed back into Center City to find some food. George's high school friend Gonzalo recommended that we venture in to the Reading Terminal Market.

We stepped off the train downtown with two bicycles and three people. We thought that there was a Philadelphia bike share program, but turns out all of the "stations" we found online on a Philly bike share map were only "proposed" stations. At first we walked our bikes, so as to stay together, but that got annoying, so with a little thought and lots of silliness we devised our own "bike share" program, and Brant hopped on my little bicycle and I surfed the rear rack! It took only a bit of balance. We laughed riding about the city; and we made many cars and pedestrians giggle.

We ate at the bustling Reading Terminal Market which was full of food vendors selling everything from falafel to thai curry to milk shakes to Philly style cheese steaks. I ate curry and the boys got in line at what seemed to be the most popular spot and ate pulled pork sandwiches with excellent provolone cheese. Afterwards we were guided to the Fourth Street Cookie Stand and we all shared two perfect chocolate chip, walnut cookies. 

After nourishing ourselves back to appropriate blood sugar levels, we hopped back on the two bikes and rode to the LOVE statue and to the train station where George would leave from the following day. We secured a bike box for George and confirmed that he could take it on the bus.


George dropped off his stuff with his friend Gonzalo, who was very busy with school, but we visited for awhile before Gonzalo had to go back to class. We ventured back over the river near the art museum and picked up some dinner fixings at the most diverse Whole Foods Market I've ever seen. In California, and most anywhere, this grocery store is colloquially referred to as "Whole Paycheck" and is often disdained for being a  haven for uptight yuppies. However, when you have just pedaled through Kansas and other food deserts, finding non-GMO produce and some organic oats becomes sort of novel and exciting, so Whole Foods has become less of a monster, mostly to Brant. I don't often shop at Whole Foods back at home because we have a fantastic little co-op and great farmers markets, but I have never disliked Whole Foods, and maybe that's because I am a food snob. Nevertheless, this Whole Foods was a different kind, it was always packed, always busy, and full of shoppers from a variety of ages and socio-economic backgrounds. Everybody was getting good food in the city.

We stocked up on taco stuff and went back to Kevin and Caitlin's to cook dinner and to get know our hosts.

Caitlin brought back some Philly microbrew for us to try; we cooked; hung out on their great balcony, talked, and ate a good feast. Caitlin and Kevin gave us details and stories of their cross country trip and it didn't take long for us to realize that we were going to be good friends. Caitlin reminded me of my close circle of lady friends at home, adventurous, intelligent women who get stuff done. She works part time at a local architecture firm and for the City of Philadelphia Office of Arts, Culture and the Creative Economy promoting public art. Awesome. And Kevin works for an inner-city Head Start charter pre-school that incorporates garden curriculum. They both have long days at work, but exude a passion for what they do.

George wished he could stay longer, loving the company as much as we did. Brant showed him how to pack his bike in a box and loaned him some tools to do so. So we hugged and said our sad goodbyes to our last official travel companion.

The next day, Brant and I took it easy, writing emails, finishing up blog posts, and hanging out with my new favorite kitty, Meowchi. We took a walk around Kevin and Caitlin's beautiful old neighborhood, made preparations for dinner, walked to the market, and had a generally relaxing day. We ate an awesome dinner with our hosts and stayed up late talking.

The next day, Brant contacted Bilenky to find that the bike repair was finished. So we mosied to the train station and made our way to the shop. Brant spent another few hours putting his bike back together, getting to know the "coupler" guy and Isis. Isis made us feel right at home in the shop, and Brant kept saying how Garret would have a huge crush on this woman who made a living crafting beauitful steel lugs.

We biked home through the same neighborhoods and made plans to go see the new Wes Anderson film, "Moonrise Kingdom," at the local indie movie theatre. We made it to the movie just in time, and enjoyed being on a date in Philadelphia. The theatre was near the oldest neighborhood in Philadelphia, Elfreth's Alley. Benjamin Franklin could have walked out of one of the row houses that lined this cobble stoned street. It was great.

We spent our last evening with Caitlin and Kevin, and we prepared our bikes to leave the following morning. We enjoyed our hosts so much and were so thankful to have had a space to stay while Brant's bike was in the shop,  to have found good friends along the way was an unexpected bonus. I think we'll keep in touch with Kevin and Caitlin for many years to come. 

We made a bagel and egg breakfast with Caitlin, said our goodbyes to Meowchi, and headed  north out of the city towards Princeton, New Jersey.

It marked the beginning of Brant and I's new chapter of riding--just the two of us.