Stop #1

The trip didn't start out too hot. As I walked out to my car on monday morning, I saw a green puddle spreading out from the driver's door. My heating system busted its pipe, and drained the anti-freeze everywhere.

Luckily my Dad was at home, who is always able to fix things. He's the guy wearing the safety glasses in the picture. He was able to devise a bypass for the heating system, so that although there is no heat in the rear of the car now, at least my cooling system isn't draining out onto the highway when I drive. The car is really about at its limit. I guess there could be much worse things than not having heat, especially in the summer. Not that it matters anyway, because my car is so full of things that the air temperature is really the last of my problems. It might even be good that it is a sweltering jungle inside the car, because our small pet succulent is mad at me for not giving him sunlight in my NYC alley apartment.

With the jury-rigged heating system I was able to get the van and all of my stuff to Philadelphia, where I stayed with the noble Dave Rader, who is fast on his way towards becoming a librarian.

Dave showed me an Eritrean restaurant, the Liberty Bell, and made some contentious claims about Philadelphia being the "last-bastion of the North". We also discussed race relations, how "SEPTA" sounds a lot like a disease, and ways to possibly change the rules of basketball. Dave is well, living in a bachelor pad with several pets, and attending barbecues occasionally. We went to a local bar for the evening that is purportedly Bob Reckard's favorite bar, and drank pitchers of Pennsylvanian beer.

Then next day Dave went to work, while I went downtown to see the renowned Philadelphia Museum of Art. I found a free parking space, and re-entry was permitted with my admission. I saw the view from the steps of the museum that are perhaps even more renowned than museum itself, and I also saw many idiot tourists posing like that boxer from the film. I scoffed, took an artistic portrait of the steps, and then went inside to also say several important things about important works of art.

The steps looked like this:

I also would like to recount some thoughts I had about the art inside the museum, but right now my next host and I are going to retrieve some of the local brew here in Baltimore, the next stop on my tour. Perhaps later I will regale you with my aesthetic insights, or maybe I will forget, or be lazy and skip it. Next update will be from Baltimore, city of crab cakes!