Saturday Ride around the West Side

I realized that I never go out through the West Side of Baltimore. Despite what you may see on TV not all of Baltimore is the Wire. I went down through the Inner Harbor, which was hopping, it was a really beautiful spring kind of day today. Next I ended up at the B & O Railroad Museum, it is looking much better now, a few years ago the roundhouse roof collapsed in a snowstorm, but it looks like they have it repaired now.

A little ways up the road, I saw this gigantic old church. I also noticed over the rest of my ride that Baltimore is littered with churches as a result of the heavy immigration in days of gone by. When the immigrants came they would all move into the same neighborhood and a church that catered to them would be built. Our neighborhood was heavily Polish, and the Catholic church near our house still does mass in Polish once a week.

Then it was on out through the neighborhoods, until eventually I ended up in Leakin Park. As I was passing through I saw a sign for Wetheredsville Road, which is the same road that my work is on. Just past the mill (where our shop is) the road is closed, and has been incorporated into the Gwynns Falls Trail which I have rode on before. On my way down the road I spotted these geese taking a break in the river.

I continued with the thought of riding by the shop but despite the warm temperatures and all, the valley the river runs through doesn't get a ton of sun, so the road became impassable on my slick tired bike, so I was thwared and turned back. Ended up walking the bike quite a bit through here, and so once I hit the main road, I had to stop and beat the ice out of my cleats to continue.

On my way home as I crossed over route 40, I spotted these huge piles of snow in the center median, they had to put it somewhere to clear the roads, so this is one of the somewheres. After that it was back down through downtown, and back to the house.