Back to New York

Argyll and I returned to New York together to get his gears looked at again.  We started out from a different train station.

Parking was a challenge, but if it hadn’t been, we would have missed this wall of green, as well as the back of the abandoned stationhouse.

Not to mention an up-close look at an electrical tower complex.

We weren’t all that early, but we also managed to watch a few trains go by.

The one above is regional rail, and below, Amtrak, headed westward.

This was a turn-around trip:  I was carrying Basil’s O bag (or, rather, Argyll was) and just a day pack with a change of clothes.  (The day pack is wearing my high-vis vest — that’s what “city chic” means to me!)

I was sitting directly across from Argyll when I took this picture; we’re practically alone in the quiet car.

I always forget how industrial is the approach into Philadelphia.

After all, why wouldn’t it be?  Rail-yards are the essence of industry.

The last few times we went to New York, water levels were at record highs; this time they had ebbed to more usual levels.

The sky can be surprisingly variable during the relatively short trip to New York City from Philadelphia and points west — a journey of only two to two-and-a-half-hours.

Though I often read on the train, I love the view outside the windows, always the same and ever-changing as it is.

My first stop, even before I head out to The Manhattanites’, is always here, at “Around the World“, an international magazine store specializing in “Fashion Publications”.  Fashion magazines do nothing for me, but I do sew from European pattern magazines, and this is the only place I can buy them.  (Also, I like the proprietors.) 

I couldn’t get the train I wanted, so Argyll and I had a few hours to noodle around on the Greenway, and to enjoy my favorite tunnel view, at 181st Street.

Argyll is getting as used to going to Fairway Market as is Basil.  We picked up a baguette, some grilled artichoke hearts (to swoon for!) and cheese:  a “Great Hill Dairy Blue” bought solely because it is made “on the shores of Buzzard’s Bay 50 miles south of Boston” because who am I to resist the call of buzzard’s bay? and a Gloucestershire offering called, horribly, “Slack My Girdle”, which I bought in spite of the name, and which turned out to be an excellent cheese.

I couldn’t get the baguette into the O bag, and Argyll still didn’t have his saddle bag,  Fortunately, I always carry a shopping tote and I had already attached the straps for his (future) bag, so I tied the tote to the straps to anchor it.  The tote was bungeed to the rear rack, too, but of such amorphous shape, and of such slippery material, that I was unsure about its ability to keep from shifting.

The Greenway detour just north of Fairway is no more; in its place is this gleaming new pathway, so it’s smooth sailing all the way to the market now.

Argyll posed with the George Washington Bridge in one of the little byways that dot the Greenway, and also stopped to check out the flowers, just coming into bloom in early June.

The next morning, we returned to The Sign of the Brompton(s), aka NYCeWheels, and whatever was still misaligned in Argyll’s gearing was set right — and has been so ever since.

(Really, best trade sign ever, don’t you think?)

Argyll was quite please to be in proper running trim.

Dr. Diarist was equally pleased once I got Argyll home to him.

Then Argyll and I hopped on an evening train and said good-bye to New York (for now).

We waved to night-time Philadelphia, and its hideous screaming-blue-neon advert as we went by.

That neon blue reflects nicely in the Schuylkill River, but I can’t help thinking of this kind of willingness to let business dominate the landscape as a form of civic dysmorphia.

And then we were home.

7/7:  Various edits, due to complaints on the home front: capitalization, correction of British spelling because, uh, we’re not in the UK.  Note to self:  coffee first, blog post second.