Hi Gram,
I had such a great time in Philly, I didn’t actually write stuff down as it was happening. By the time I got back to Illinois, I had a mounting feeling of “oh, I have so much to write about that it’s overwhelming. I’ll write tomorrow… ” and that went on for a couple weeks. I’m in Nebraska now, a few days into my next journey, so I’m going to try to catch up.

I had such a relaxing, enjoyable, memory-filled visit in Philly. I visited with Annie and her friends, rode my bike all over the place, went for walks, saw some sights, went to some sites, and learned a little history. My first day in town, I slept in a little, did my morning stretches, and took a walk to Aldi to stock up on some basic grocery items. I waved at people sitting out on their front porches, marveled at the vast differences between rowhouses that were packed against each other, and listened to the sounds of the city churning around me. Looking down the block, you see the solid face of the rowhouses one after another stretching as far as you can see. Walking past them, though, I saw that each house has its own flair. Different colors of brick or siding, different heights, some were set back a little to create a covered porch, every now and then there’s a garage. Many had simple steps to the sidewalk, but some had porches with chairs and benches, maybe an umbrella to sit and enjoy the sunshine. There were awnings, curtains, motorcycles chained to the railing, people sitting at a table playing chess on the sidewalk, lights, decorations, and knick knacks.

When Annie was done with work, we walked over to the polling place so she could vote in the primaries. I sat in a corner and did some people watching while she went in a booth and presumably filled in some ovals with the provided pencil. After that, we decided we were hungry and walked down to O’Jung’s, a corner bar and grill a few blocks away. It felt very urban sitting at a table on the sidewalk, cars a foot to one side of us and pedestrians walking by on the other side between us and the restaurant. We each got a burrito with a tortilla that had cheese baked into it. It was way too much food but so delicious I couldn’t stop until it was all gone. Our waitress looked just like another waitress that Annie’s seen before, and we asked her if they’re sisters. Turns out, they’re not related but best friends and she gets that a lot. I guess when you spend that much time with someone, you start to look alike. Satiated with our meals and conversation, we headed back to the house.

Tuesday, I decided to take a walk and see some of the local artwork. Since the primary election had just taken place and some guy named Jeff Brown was running, I wanted to get a picture of one of his signs for my buddy with the same name. As I was walking through the park, a woman was cleaning up all the signs left behind and was trying to give them away. I told her I didn’t want the sign, just a picture, and she was adamant that she couldn’t be in the picture because she didn’t vote for him. I assured her that nobody that I know would recognize her and I could just take a picture of the sign on lawn, but she was very dramatic about standing directly behind me so there would be no way she’d be in the picture. I laughed and thanked her for helping me stage the photo before going on my way.

I was on my way to see The Magic Gardens, a local art display, but got tricked by one of the bars. When I arrived, I messaged Annie telling her that some bar had replaced the Magic Gardens. She recognized the name of the bar and told me that I was a few blocks away from the actual gardens. I double-checked my GPS and saw that the bar had a listing for “Magic Gardens” but if I typed in “THE Magic Gardens”, it directed me to the right place. A few blocks later, I was outside the real “gardens” and looked at it from the outside.

The Magic Gardens is an art installation by a guy that collected bottles, signs, metal, tiles, and other shiny things of assorted colors and cemented it all together into mosaics and shapes on walls. Looking through some holes in the wall, I could see that the inside was just more of the same as the outside, so I didn’t pay the entrance fee to go wander around and gaze at it. It was cool to see, and helped me understand the influence on a number of other buildings in the area with shiny bits and pieces embedded in their concrete. I love seeing urban art like that and, judging from the line to get in, the artist wasn’t going to starve without my admission fee. He’d obviously been a big influence on the area, with his artwork appearing on walls for blocks, maybe even miles, around.

Satisfied that I’d gotten a taste of what there was to see, I headed back the way I came, fascinated by the shops and bars coming to life. I’ve found that many tourist areas will settle on a pattern of shops unintentionally. When I was in Key West many years ago, it was bars, t-shirt shops, and knick-knack stores. On block of 20 stores, 6 would be one of those three types, then there might be an art gallery or something. Here, the pattern was bar, bar, massage parlor, clothing store, bar, massage parlor, clothing store, bar, bar…. I’m sure I passed at least 3 clothing stores and 2 massage parlors on every block, with bars filling in the gaps. I imagine what happens is that the area has a variety of businesses at first. As it gets more popular, one or two businesses are successful so someone copies them. Those are successful, so they keep getting copied over and over until it doesn’t seem reasonable to start any other kind of business in the area, because that becomes the neighborhood where everyone goes looking for those kinds of shops.

In any case, I walked on. Podcasts filled my ears and I enjoyed seeing all the beautiful murals and artwork scattered along my path. My feet were starting to get a little sore as I realized that I’d walked about five miles, but I was enjoying the moderate weather and all the people, buildings, and artwork. When I got to the house, I went and sat in the backyard to finish up the podcast I’d been listening to and soak up some more sunshine. It had been a beautiful day. I’ll wrap up my Philly adventures tomorrow!