Bride of Penn Avenue, Destiny of Sand Sculptures, Risk of Bike Naps

07/12/12 #241 70m

Two rides today, one 45 miles and the other 25 miles.

Started in the morning at the Bastille, rode south into Point State Park where against all expectations the sandy mess of the previous day, the debris of the remarkable artwork of the previous week, had somehow not been cleared away but had instead become more organized into a pile, somehow resisting the famous forces of entropy.



Rode south on the Station Square Trail, Waterfront Trail, Kennywood Trail, to the Riverton Bridge. Reversed and rode north to the Hot Metal Bridge, Junction Hollow Trail, Fifth, Wilkins, Murray, and Forbes. Poked around at PghProBikes.

Departed Squill crosstown in search of the mural, The Bride of Penn Avenue, by Judy Penzer and Jill Watson. Coming within a few blocks of it, you can see the mural of a bride entering the building.


When you get closer, you can discern that the apparent building is a mirage painted upon a flat wall. The visual continuation of the row of buildings is a head-fake. Very impressive.



Tragically, the two artists died in the crash of TWA800 on July 17th, 1996.

Rode Penn Avenue to 24th Street and the Cork Factory, the Convention Center Trail to the Point once again, where the irresistable forces of PeopleWhoWantFridayOff eventually overcame Inertia and both the wreckage and the sand sculpture itself was just a memory.


Rode north to the Bastille and my car for 45 miles on the bike so far. Moved my car to Oakland for the afternoon's logistics, then proceeded to take a well-deserved bike nap. Taking a bike nap is not without risk; well-meaning passersby may assume you have passed out or entered a diabetic coma. Word: if you're bikenapping and wake up to the sound of somebody saying "CLEAR" in an authoritative voice, shout out NO! NO! NO!



Rode around town some more, then rode through the South Side Works River Front Plaza, which is almost too many words in one placename; saw that the cooling mist generators (CMGs) were active.



Rode to West Mifflin for a friend's celebration. 837/885 up the hill was a great workout; coming back down was a lot more fun. The day's second ride was 25 miles, for 70 miles total.

Fracking and Napping the Ides of March

03/15/12 #238 33m 2h38m

Rode the Montour Trail, starting at Enlow and riding southwest. I haven't been out this way in a while, and the nascent Marcellus Shale footprint has really changed the local landscape.

There's the fracking fluid remediation facility in Boggs, which sits on top of a series of abandoned mines. There's the trail reconstruction to accommodate a fracking-fluid railway between MP19 and MP21, a major bit of earth-sculpting. At the road crossings there's a lot of shale vehicles and equipment, and at MP16 there's this sight of blue skies, birdhouses, and resource retrieval:


They really do make an effort to be sub-overt.

After Route50 the trail resumed its normal path, and somewhere around MP23-ish I found a favorite grassy spot under a tree and indulged in a bike nap. (See related flickr group)

I had a very nice nap of about a half-hour, just enough time for some major whack dreaming and some serious snoring, then I woke up feeling quite sprightly and enjoyed the ride back to the start all the more. I think napping along the trail is something that senior citizens can get away with, and I'm going to start embracing my Inner Geezer on days like this.

Today's snack experiment was an Odwalla White Chocolate, Macadamia Nut Bar, totally excellent. There's not any water available along this segment of the trail, and the soda machine at the Rt.50 skin cancer dispensary tanning salon was sold out, so the bottles were dry by the time I was done.