Sometimes you know a ride is going to be great within the first moment. Today I met a superhero in Minute :01.
Getting started on the trail, saw an opposite-direction rollerblader whose outfit identified him as BurghMan. "Hey, I've met you before, haven't I? Silver suit, motorcycle?"
Oh no, he explained in a courteous and confident voice. That's SteelMan. I'm BurghMan. Burghman is all about the kids. He handed me his card, tipped his helmet, and skated off.
How do you know you live in a great city? A great city has Steel Man and BurghMan, and they're both cool with that.
Rode around the stadia, came upon this unexpected mural at 1212 Arch Street, painted by Benjamin Schneider:
We rode over to Randyland hoping to find Randy Gilson but the gates were closed and nobody was around. Took this photo showing the Arch Street perspective of RandyLand:
In that photo above, bottom-center, you'll see a red sign, it's a panel of exhortations which I think is new.
Along the south side of Randyland, there's a Junk Deposit Box where you're to deposit the junk in your mind before you come in to visit.
The Junk Deposit Box very much reminds me of a 2006 Burning Man photo by Gabe Kirchheimer:
Subsequently the notion of "Fears Erased Daily" was implemented on college whiteboards across the country, generating this response from one computer science student:
And that's how I roll. Pittsburgh -> RandyLand -> BurningMan -> Javascript. Sorry.
The gates at Randyland were closed, so we rode west and took this picture at the Northside Common Ministries facility at 1601 Brighton Road:
Stopped at Buena Vista Coffee, 1501 Buena Vista Street. Excellent biscotti, great staff, relaxed vibe, I'll go back there. Wanted to try Randyland one more time, so rode along Sampsonia Way to see the Asylum Houses (which are very cool) and got to RandyLand just as Randy was admitting a group of visitors, excellent timing.
We got to spend about an hour inside RandyLand, it was very interesting and entertaining. It's a cross between Willie Wonka's Chocolate Factory, a Zen Garden, and PeeWee's Playhouse. This is a photo of an arch over one of the gates:
Ft. Duquesne Bridge, Ft. Pitt Bridge, saw the ice rink at Highmark HoHoHounds Stadium, stopped at Station Square to see a gingerbread display, rode south to Keystone Metals (nothing new to report), Hot Metal Bridge, and then we stopped along the Jail Trail to photograph some NTM (non traditional murals):
"The Chief", a homage to Old Man Rooney:
"Tanks But No Tanks" (CU, this one's for you!)
23 miles, 46F at the end, a very nice ride.
 | Dec 15, 2012 this week: 166 miles |  237# | 4th Qtr 1583 miles 21.1 mi/day4QTD | 2012: 6894 miles |
No comments:
Post a Comment