Today, Nadezhda Shulga and I took a comprehensive trip to Philadelphia: 2.5 hours by car to Valley Forge, and almost as long by bike from Forge to Philadelphia and back. Schuylkill River Trail. It felt just like a vacation. Eventually, 72 km flew by quickly along a very beautiful and diverse trail, ending with a delicious Thai restaurant in Philly.
The city turned out to be eerily half-empty. The streets were filled with homeless people, wind, random passers-by, and cyclists (us). I can’t say that everything was closed, but we couldn’t get to the same terminal market not because of the virus, but because of the Independence Day weekend, which is particularly reverently celebrated in Philadelphia, as the declaration was signed there. Everyone in the city wears masks even outdoors (well, okay, the homeless do not). I heard that this order was introduced recently.
We discovered a new, very cozy historical small town, a suburb of Philly, Manayunk, Pennsylvania. Wikipedia told us that the name of the three-hundred-year-old city translates as a place to drink. We decided that athletes can’t just pass by without having a drink, so we stopped at a local smoothie bar. If you see Tbaar, do not pass by; it’s simply fantastic. There is also an interesting five-story building on a micro-island the size of this five-story building, to which (and only to which) an iron bridge is built. In general, the town has a scent of Europe.
By evening, all the local animals came out onto the trail. Tiny bunnies and rabbits, deer, and groundhogs were encountered all along the way back. I used to only see groundhogs from a distance, but here both of the ones we encountered were sitting by the path and eating grass. Video is attached. Groundhogs are cool.
Hi, I'm Rauf Aliev. 