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Argyll Travel

Argyll on the Greenway

I did a little fabric shopping when I went to New York City with Argyll.  The next morning, he and  I set out to take the bundle to UPS so that it could be shipped home.

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This was another first for Argyll, and a Brompton first for me, too; I’d never used Basil’s rear rack.  The built-in bungees worked just fine, and Argyll was easy to ride, even with a pretty heavy bundle on the back.

rn-gbdTalk about spring!  This what the sky looked like outside the Manhattanites’s apartment.

Then we turned the corner.

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Well!  I couldn’t figured out what I was seeing at first.  Why were all those vehicles covered in fluffy stuff?  It reminded me of a conversation I’d once had with a woman on a train:  She’d funded an “art installation” composed of a Hummer covered in crocheted cotton.  That memory didn’t help; this was serious cognitive dissonance.  The previous day had been all blossoms and greenery; today there was a fine dusting of snow all over the place.

We got to UPS just fine, where, in a first, I was thrown out of the store, but my Brompton bicycle was allowed to stay.  There’s a rule, it seems, against packing a box inside the building.  The UPS guy and I usually get along well; maybe he was having a bad day.

Argyll was just as happy to stay inside while I packed my box on the sidewalk.

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Sadly, there’s nothing I want to buy here, but I love seeing this store front next to the UPS store.  “Moscow on the Hudson”:  Now that’s evocative!

Argyll and I went next door and got coffee before heading out for a ride.  A Brompton bicycle tucks nicely out of the way, even in a cramped big-city coffee shop.

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Outside, the sun was shining, but hadn’t quite vanquished the snow.

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There’s always something new to see, even on familiar New York streets.  Someone had added these airy boots to the landscape since the last time I’d been to UPS.

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There was only a tiny patch of snow left under this tree.  That wasn’t the case on the Westside Greenway, where Argyll and I headed next.

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There was less snow on the train tracks below, but there it was, nevertheless.gn-tkRiding the Greenway was another first for Argyll (and without his own cyclist, Dr. Diarist!); this was also his first trip under the George Washington Bridge.

The previous night’s snow hadn’t discouraged all of the blooms, though it’s possible that the real damage didn’t show up until later.

gn-rvThe temperature was much colder than I’d anticipated, and my hands were feeling it.  I had fold-over cuffs on my cycling top, but the are a bit clumsy to use, particularly for braking, so I stopped in at Fairway hoping to find something to keep my fingers a bit happier.

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Argyll in a Fairway cart:  Made for each other!

Inside, we encountered one of Argyll’s distant kin.  Bicycles are au courant, everywhere, these days.

gn-bcIn the cosmetics department, I found cotton gloves, which bought me some warmth — just enough — and some dexterity, when installed under my cycling mitts.  Frozen fingers in mid-April:  most unexpected!

gn-glArgyll still didn’t have his saddle bag, but I’d already attached the straps that would hold it in place, once I finished making it.  They proved to be just the thing to use to tie the grocery bag under his saddle.

gn-lpWe left the Greenway at this point, and I got lost looking for Broadway.  I ended up on Martin Luther King, but, hey, why not?  It’s difficult to get so lost in New York that one can’t find a way out, and there’s always something interesting to see.

gn-mkThe aerial view of the street is pretty cool.

Later I realized that this station is at the intersection of MLK and Broadway.  Sigh.

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Once here, I couldn’t resist the lure of catching the subway above ground.  Also, Fairway-on-the-Greenway didn’t have rainbow cookies, so Argyll and I headed for the East Side, via the MTA.

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Argyll ended up visiting two Fairway Markets, on two different sides of Manhattan, in one day.  Another first!

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Rainbow cookies:  I doubt they’re natural, and I know they’re unhealthy, but they are very like marzipan petit fours someone used to give me when I was a child.

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Unlike the blue bag of the previous day, this orange bag didn’t stain my hands.

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We rode over to a park next to the Museum of Natural History, where I snacked on tasty, tasty cookies.  A day’s work, well done.

7 replies on “Argyll on the Greenway”

Awesome report. Felt like a tour of the parts of NYC you visited. So, thanks for that.
In a Russian store, the Black Bread, might be something to try.
Perhaps with Peanut Butter and some good honey.
Let me not make you an addict :)

Peace :)

Thanks, Chandra. I don’t like peanut butter much, but the idea of peanut butter with honey on a strong black bread sounds very tempting. Next time, I’ll have to stop into the store and buy a loaf of Russian bread and see what it is like.

Hi! I really enjoyed that post. Two things: (1) What’s with the UPS idiocy of not being allowed to pack your box *inside* the store?! (2) Loved the photo underneath the tracks at Broadway & MLK!

I don’t know about the UPS thing, Will. All I can imagine is that New Yorkers have such small apartments that they may not keep packing materials at home. Maybe they clog the equally small UPS stores if they pack their boxes inside? (Not an issue that day; I was the only one there.)

The Manhattanites (I stay with them in NYC) had no idea what the prohibition was about, but I don’t think they ever ship things, so there’s no reason they would know.

Thanks for the compliment about the photo — I love those views of “ordinary” NYC streets, especially when I don’t expect to see them!

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