Wow, this city. I wish I could stay another week! Sadly, accommodation is very hard to come by, so I’ll be on my way tomorrow, probably over to Tampa on the train. (Accommodation is very hard to come by in the Fort Lauderdale and Delray Beach areas—not to mention in the keys!—so, sadly, I’ll be missing all of those this time around. Guess I’ll need to return to Florida sometime.)
Today I explored Miami Beach. First I hopped on the free monorail, just a few blocks away from my host’s high-rise, and took the short “inner loop,” just for fun. It also gave me some good hands-on experience, though, for when I head to the train station tomorrow; I think the monorail plus the Metrorail will get me where I need to go. (Cycling around downtown Miami is not for the faint of heart!)
But after I explored the monorail, I did cycle over to Miami Beach. To do so, from 15th Street, one passes through six small islands before arriving at the larger island that is Miami Beach. I only explored a very small portion of the island; I would like to return someday and see more of it. But I glimpsed the Atlantic Ocean, which was pretty cool! And I cycled along the beachfront path. I also got to see lots of Art Deco and (my new favorite) Streamline Moderne architecture.
I had hoped to visit the small Japanese garden on one of the small islands, on my way back to Miami, but sadly I arrived just at 5:00, when they closed. I took a photo of the Buddha statue outside of the garden as a sort of consolation prize.
When I got back into town, I enjoyed a delicious burrito at vegan spot The Cocinita, a short walk away (Ruben and I had burgers there last night) and then sipped a farewell-to-Miami watermelon margarita at a bar a few doors down. Afterward, I enjoyed the nighttime view from the 34th floor balcony.
Pure magic. There is no place like Miami.
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My Miami Warmshowers host, Ruben, had suggested that we take a bike tour around downtown Miami and Miami Beach today, which had sounded great to me. But then when we got to looking at the map, I asked about the Everglades, and he then offered instead to accompany me out there—driving about 50 miles each way—to bike the 15-mile loop at the park entrance we went to.
I don’t know if I ever thought I’d visit the Everglades. Certainly I had heard about the area throughout my life. But I hadn’t even thought I’d make it to Florida on this trip. Life unfolds in mysterious ways…
Anyway, it was quite an experience! We are both tired and slightly sunburned now, despite multiple applications of sunscreen, but it was a great adventure. We saw many birds, several turtles (sadly hard to photograph), large bees, dragonflies… and so. many. gators.
I’ll mostly let the photos speak for themselves. It is hard to convey the scale, but the one in this first photo was extra large, perhaps ten or even twelve feet long. We also saw a couple of babies, perhaps five feet from head to tail. Most were probably around eight feet.
The terrain was flat, and there was little shade. At about the halfway point was a cool lookout tower, from which I took a couple of the pics.
Ruben will be working tomorrow, so I’ll have the day to myself. I plan to do a self-guided version of the city tour he suggested.
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Well, I’ve made it to Miami! The train ride lasted about 20 hours, including an overnight, and it had its ups and downs.
I bade a fond farewell to my aunt and uncle Saturday evening after an early dinner, and my uncle drove me to the train station in Raleigh.
Once again, at the station I had to haggle with Amtrak staff about my rig. This time might have been the trickiest situation yet, and ended up costing me an extra $20 to roll the bike, unfolded, onto the baggage car. (There was no space for it in my roomette, and they wouldn’t allow me to check it as regular baggage without a box, which would have cost me $25.) The trailer had to be disassembled again as well. But, we all made it onto the train.
This was a longer-than-usual train set, made up of Amtrak’s eastern-US style of Viewliner cars. There were five sleeper cars, which was probably more than twice what I have ever experienced before on Amtrak. Usually, on the western lines, they have just two sleeper cars, with 15-20 bedrooms and roomettes each. It was amazing that this one had five. In fact, the train was so long that I had to wait on the platform with my bike and the assistant conductor for about 15 minutes before boarding, because they needed to pull the train up to accommodate all the cars; the platform wasn’t long enough for the whole length of the train.
My roomette was in one of the traditional Viewliner cars (blue color scheme) but two of the other cars were Viewliner IIs (burgundy.) The Viewliner II cars had bathrooms at the end of the hall that we could all use if we preferred, rather than the sink and toilet in each of our private compartments. I appreciated this, because I don’t like using the sink and toilet directly next to the bed. The sink, in particular, tends to splash all over the bed. (Although I also read that apparently this design flaw was improved in the Viewliner II roomette sinks; perhaps I’ll get a chance to experience that firsthand someday.)
I had a very pleasant surprise shortly after boarding, when I looked at the menu for the “modified dining car” on this train, and discovered vegan enchiladas on the lunch-and-dinner portion. Wow! Of all the dining cars I’ve experienced on this trip so far, this was the first one with a vegan option on the dinner menu. It was after 9:00 pm when I boarded, so I opted not to order dinner, but was excited to try the enchiladas for lunch the following day.
So imagine my utter deflation when my room attendant told me, before lunch today, that the dining car had sold out of this item. When I made it clear that I was not willing to order any non-vegan items, he offered that he could put in an order for three salads, for my lunch. Some of you will recall, seeing this sad photo, that this is pretty much exactly what Amtrak had in place for vegans seven years ago, when I ran a triumphant Change.org campaign to get vegan items on dining-car menus system wide. It felt crushing when I realized, within the past year or so, that the vegan options I had worked so hard for—and had enjoyed so much after winning them—were no longer available on most of these menus. But to have my hopes raised and then dashed today, in such a visually familiar fashion… ugh.
The sort-of good news was that (unbeknownst to my room attendant, who steadfastly maintained that this item was not available in the café car) the café car did have in stock the vegan tamale that I have eaten before. The bad news was that unlike dining-car meals, which are included in the price of sleeper-car tickets, I had to pay out of pocket for the tamale. Insult to injury.
I was dismayed on many levels, but chose to accept the situation and make the best of it.
I spent most of my time on the train reading, writing, snacking, dozing, and glancing out the window as the vegetation turned lush and green.
We arrived in Miami only ten minutes late, at 6:45 pm, and my Warmshowers host Ruben had helpfully suggested how I could take the city’s Metrorail train from near the station to near his place. Still, it took some time and effort to gather up all my checked baggage and reassemble it. The Amtrak station closed at 7:00, and I walked out the door at about 6:59. I had spent at least five minutes trying to reattach the trailer hitch, which was suddenly challenging because staff in Raleigh had apparently covered the metal with a weird protective tape that was hard to remove and that made the connection impossible until I did remove most of it.
I finally got out the door, and pedaled about a mile to the Metrorail station, just in time to catch a beautiful sunset above some train tracks that I crossed along the way.
Ruben met me with his bike at the station nearest his high-rise condo, and accompanied me for that last leg of the journey, which was very helpful. We even hit up the Whole Foods about a block away, to get some deli items for a snack before bed.
Ruben himself was just arriving home today—from Dallas last night—having flown in from a three-week humanitarian medical mission near the Ukrainian border. I am continually amazed at the caliber of people in the Warmshowers network, and also how flexible many of these folks are about hosting others, even when they are coming in and out of their own travels at the same time.
We are on the 34th floor here, and Miami seems unlike any other city I’ve visited! High rises all around, rooftop pools, a loud electronic music festival just wrapping up at 10:00 tonight, with throngs of attendees and a laser light show… I think these next few days will be interesting! Ruben says he will take me on a bike tour of the city tomorrow.
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Today I got to explore a nice segment of the 22.6-mile American Tobacco Trail, a rails-to-trails project between Durham and Apex. The northern section is paved, so it was a nice smooth ride where I went. I enjoyed the winter-looking woods, as well as a few signs of spring that were peeking through, such as redbud and cherry trees in full bloom near the trail.
The weather varied from cool and overcast to cheery sun breaks illuminating puffy white clouds.
Shortly after the northern start of the trail, I stopped for lunch at a restaurant, Banu Vegan, just a few blocks off the path. The man who took my order told me they had just opened about five months ago, so I was glad to be able to enjoy it. I ordered a curried-chickpea dish to go, so that I could eat it in a nearby park. Sadly, the plating of to-go meals rarely emerges unscathed after traveling around in a bag suspended from my handlebars, so the photo doesn’t do justice to the original artful presentation. But the flavors were good.
It felt good to get out onto a long wooded bike trail again; it had been a while.
I have one more day here in Apex with my aunt and uncle, but by tomorrow night I’ll be on the sleeper train to Miami! I’m not sure if I’ll be making a post tomorrow night, since the weather looks dreary and might lend itself to staying indoors, as well as the fact that I’m not sure if I’ll have WiFi, or access to my laptop, on the train. But I’ll be in touch before too long, from sunny Florida!
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Another relatively brief post today, since I don’t have many photos or much to report, but I’m doing well (and have managed to evade recent tornadoes here in North Carolina, as well as Texas and New Orleans—oof).
Yesterday I said goodbye to my wonderful Charlotte Warmshowers host Pam, and headed out into a light rain to reach the train station. Once again, I went through some back-and-forth rigmarole with Amtrak staff to get my rig on board. (This time, I even had to disassemble the trailer and remove some weight from it.) But I made it OK to Cary, NC, and my uncle met me trainside.
The train did arrive late, partly because of tornado warnings in the area. Fortunately, we didn’t experience any high winds on the train, but there was definitely heavy rain as we went through, and stopped longer than scheduled in, Greensboro. (See pics.)
I had a great reunion with my aunt and uncle (and their two spirited dogs!) and stayed up into the wee hours talking. This morning I awakened at 11:30, and then we mostly lounged about and talked more today, including an outdoor patio get-together with their bicycle-enthusiast neighbors.
Tomorrow I plan to explore a local rail-trail, so stay tuned for some photos of that!
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OK, I’m back! I took a few days off from blogging to connect with a close friend here in Charlotte over the weekend. We stayed in a vegan eco-hotel(!) and enjoyed a few local vegan restaurants, as well as a cool tiny vegan grocery store, tucked away inside the nifty used bookstore Book Buyers in a local strip mall.
Then last night and today, I stayed with another Warmshowers host, Pam Murray, who is a bicycle activist extraordinaire! In fact, today she was being filmed by a PBS crew from the nearby Raleigh, NC television station. They filmed her first around the house, then out on her bike riding to the grocery store, and finally this evening after dark, leading a local nighttime bike ride with about 25 participants. I hope I’ll be able to see the segment when it airs. Pam is the founder of CLT Spokes People, and the director of NC Bicycle Benefits, which grants cyclists special discounts and freebies when they arrive at a business by bike and show their helmet sticker. She also leads local classes called Cycling Savvy, to help people to become more comfortable and safe as they explore getting around town by bike.
Pam took me around town by bike this morning, on a handful of errands, including a great bike shop, the post office, and the drugstore. Then we went to lunch at a nearby vegan restaurant and market, Oh My Soul, that was incredible! It is owned by a group of young South Africans, who actually founded the restaurant in South Africa, then moved it here to Charlotte. It is an ambitious place, not only serving traditional restaurant meals, but also offering vegan “meats” and cheeses in deli cases, as well as many decadent desserts, including a yellow-and-blue-frosted cupcake benefiting an animal rescue in Ukraine.
We enjoyed a delicious lunch together on their patio, and then later in the day I returned solo, to pick up a small cheese sampler. (As it turns out, their cheeses come from Rebel Cheese, in Austin, which as you may recall I recently visited.) Today I picked up more of the dill havarti, as well as a za’atar cheese and a fennel-flavored one, both of which intrigue me. Pam and I will sample them for brunch tomorrow, alongside the hummus she made from scratch today. (She cooked the dried beans in the Instant Pot, and then blended all ingredients by hand, without even using a food processor! Pam is very committed to living in eco-friendly ways, such as bicycling for transportation; reusing materials—including packaging materials—whenever possible; picking up discarded items and furniture on roadsides and repairing them; and more!)
She told me about Bicycle Benefits, which she helps to administer locally and nationwide. (If you’d like to get it going in your town, send her a message.)
I have thoroughly enjoyed connecting with Pam, and I also enjoyed my solo rides around the area. Charlotte is a very beautiful city, with a lush urban canopy, and lovely neighborhoods filled with houses that are beautiful in simple ways, without being ostentatious. I find this to be a charming city.
Today’s weather was perfect, as well, in the mid-70s. Tomorrow, when I take the train to visit my aunt and uncle near Raleigh, thunderstorms are forecast for most of the day. We’ll see if I can dodge the raindrops on the way back to the station!
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Apologies for my infrequent posts in the past few days, and in the coming week. My second Warmshowers host here in Atlanta does not have WiFi in his apartment, and I’m about to go “off grid” for a few days with a friend in Charlotte, NC, starting tomorrow. But in this moment, I’m here in a coffee shop in Inman Park, Atlanta (during a break in the epic thunderstorms of the day!) so I want to share my time here from yesterday, when the sun shone and most things went right.
I first headed out on foot, in the late morning, to a drugstore to buy a new reline kit for my denture. I’ve found that in general, travel has gone pretty smoothly with my dental situation. But for the past few weeks, my existing reline was getting more and more ill-fitting, so I thought I’d take care of it here in Atlanta. Sadly, my first two attempts (which take me more than an hour each, despite the apparent ease shown in that video) did not go well. I was getting discouraged, and eating was becoming difficult and painful. So, I made it my mission to get another kit yesterday. Unfortunately, my initial foray took me farther on foot than I had anticipated, and the several drugstores I visited did not have the kits in stock. I did eventually find one, late in the afternoon, and successfully put it to use last night, so all is well with my dentition for the time being.
But along the way to that first drugstore, I passed some cool buildings, including a bar called “Church” with a large mural of Stacey Abrams on it, as well as the name of Raphael Warnock. Those two names seemed like legends to me after the last election; I had contributed to their respective campaigns at the time, but had momentarily forgotten that they were based in Atlanta. (I was especially surprised when, about an hour later, I walked past the actual church where Rev. Warnock is the minister! See photo.)
That Church bar was only about a block past the famous, Black-owned vegan burger restaurant Slutty Vegan. I had initially planned to visit there, but sadly my teeth were not in good shape for biting into a burger, so I met a friend for a smoothie later instead. But this local vegan burger chain is legendary, with lines snaking around the block late at night.
On my way back from the drugstore, I passed a small group of men who were part of the Baha’i Faith Center of Atlanta. They were hosting a charity event in which they were distributing clothing and shoes to homeless people in the neighborhood. Not realizing I was a visitor, they encouraged me to come back and volunteer at a future event. When I said I was only in town for a few days, they invited me to see the inside of their next-door shop, Created Noble (not open at the time—they unlocked it to let me in) where they sell clothing and art to support civil rights causes and mostly Black artists in the area. The proprietor told me that the shop had come together organically: during the time of the George Floyd demonstrations and activism, he and some friends found themselves holding protest signs, sometimes even one in each hand. Then he realized he could be using his clothing to make such statements, so he began printing T-shirts. Then he started selling them to family and friends, and they were popular enough that he decided to open a shop for them. Meanwhile, his mother is a Spanish teacher at a nearby high school, and she had recently led a fundraising effort with the students in the school, selling ice cream from a Latino-owned ice cream shop in south Atlanta, so that low-income students in her class could afford to attend their class field trip to Costa Rica.
Now the shop sells those ice creams as well (including some vegan options—I sampled the chocolate) to support community efforts.
I was inspired by the story of a successful local business, founded on a mission of service to the local community, which came together almost magically, fueled by genuine passion and, as the proprietor described it me, “many serendipities.”
After this serendipitous tour, I continued on my way, now meeting up with my friend Brett at a locally owned smoothie shop. I first met Brett in Melbourne, Australia, when I visited there in December of 2013. Since then, he has moved to Los Angeles, and then relocated to Atlanta, to work in the film industry. (He is a professional stunt man!) I was lucky to catch him in town, because he is heading back overseas for a month in just a few days.
We had a great conversation, catching up on several years’ worth of our lives since we last shared a meal in LA, while we walked through a local park. Part of the park included the Jimmy Carter presidential library. We didn’t go inside, but the grounds looked cool.
After Brett and I said goodbye, I continued to explore the Little Five Points commercial district, where I visited a natural foods co-op which has been operating since 1974. I got some tasty eats for future meals.
Now, today, has been mostly stormy, so I’ve mostly stayed inside. I did just learn that my vegan friend from Portland, Stephanie—with whom I met up just outside of Phoenix a couple months ago, and she gave me a ride to Tucson—just landed in Atlanta last night! The small world continues. We are going to see if she and her friend might be able to meet me for dinner in a few hours at Envegan, near the train station. My train is scheduled to depart at 11:29 pm, and arrive in Charlotte at 5:06 am: oof! At least I could use my Amtrak points to book a sleeper car.
So, you may not hear from me for a few days, but when you do, I’ll tell you about Charlotte, and also about my new plan for April, including a geographic detour I hadn’t initially envisioned.
I hope you’re all doing well!
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It’s raining here in Atlanta. Started yesterday afternoon, and is supposed to continue all day today, including some possible thunderstorms this afternoon. So, I’m taking it easy indoors. But yesterday morning and early afternoon, before the rain began, I ventured out to the nearby Atlanta Botanical Garden. It was a lovely space, and included a small Japanese garden, actually somewhat similar to the one I just saw in New Orleans. My favorite part of the botanical garden was the large wooded area, with tall trees and an elevated pedestrian walkway. There was a beautiful sculpture of a woman nestled into the trees, and I spent some quiet reflective time on a bench in her presence.
One jarring thing struck me, similar to all the signs about not bringing your guns into businesses in Texas: the sign at the entrance to the garden indemnifying local entities from “injury or death” resulting from catching COVID-19 on the premises. (I saw another such sign in the local Whole Foods, along with another don’t-bring-your-guns-in-here sign. It’s a different world in the South, I guess.)
Shortly after passing that sign, though, I entered the garden and was greeted by a friendly frog relaxing on a bench. That set the tone for the rest of my time at the garden.
Afterward, I biked over to an outpost of a local restaurant chain called Envegan, where I enjoyed a kale-quinoa wrap and a slice of Black Forest cake before venturing out into the drizzle that had just begun.
For dinner, my Warmshowers host Esteban and I met up with his friend Neel to carpool to dinner at their friends’ house, Ricardo and Teresa. Teresa works at a bike shop, and we all enjoyed talking about travels, including Esteban’s trip to Mexico, which begins today! It was a very multicultural gathering: Esteban from Ecuador, on the eve of his first trip to Mexico; Ricardo and Teresa from Mexico, lamenting that they could not join him on the trip; and Neel from India (although he seems to have lived in dozens of US cities as well). Plus me, the traveling “local”! It was a wonderful gathering filled with good food and laughter.
Today I am catching up on indoor tasks, and then when the rain lets up tomorrow, I look forward to exploring Atlanta’s very impressive-looking car-free beltline. I also hope to meet up with my Australian friend Brett, whom I met in Melbourne when I visited there in 2013; he lives in Atlanta now! I’m also looking forward to meeting tonight’s Warmshowers host, Nick, who I just found out works at the Atlanta Botanical Garden.
What a small world we live in.
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There’s not too much to report from yesterday; I was on the train almost all day, from 9 am to 11 pm. I’ll report more later about today in Atlanta. But the clouds were pretty breathtaking for most of the day on the train yesterday, so I wanted to at least share some imagery from that voyage, as well as a few photos from before and after.
The bike lanes throughout New Orleans often contained reminders of the recent Mardi Gras celebrations, which I found amusing.
The train station in New Orleans had a cool sculpture out front.
In Atlanta, there was a cool bike-and-pedestrian bridge across the freeway immediately adjacent to the train station. And before too long, I passed a beautiful old church as well. (I also saw one on that fateful night I arrived in New Orleans, but didn’t end up posting it.)
Unfortunately, I had written down the wrong address for my first Atlanta Warmshowers host, so he ended up having to come and pick me up from his old apartment to take me to the new one. I appreciated his willingness to offer that, especially given the late hour. (I think it was about 11:30 by the time I got to the wrong place.) Furthermore, he will be taking a vacation to Mexico himself in a few days! The generosity, and flexibility, of Warmshowers hosts never ceases to amaze me.
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The weather today was lovely and sunny—if still a bit chilly in the shade—and I ventured out!
First I checked out of the Airbnb, and pedaled north a couple miles to the home of tonight’s host, a friend of a friend who once biked across the USA herself, as part of a 25-person Habitat for Humanity ride in 1997. I parked my trailer and took a shower, and then headed out for the day.
First I visited the botanical gardens, at New Orleans City Park, just a short ride away. I met up there with my new friend Arne (hi Arne, if you’re reading this!) whom I met at the Houston train station. We started talking at the station, and ended up chatting the entire 12 hours on the train, in the lounge car. He is visiting the US from Germany, and this was the first time in New Orleans for both of us.
I wanted to see the Japanese garden, of course, and it was a sweet little space, although small as Japanese gardens go. (In a small-world twist, I learned that this Japanese garden was designed and built by Robin Tanner, a friend of a friend of my host here!)
We strolled around the rest of the garden as well, including a cool model train area that contained replicas of actual New Orleans buildings.
Then we made our way to the French Quarter by streetcar! (Immediately the Doobie Brothers’ Black Water began playing in my head: “Just take that streetcar that’s going uptown…”)
We walked along Bourbon Street, and found a place that served po’boys. I got a vegan cauliflower one: delicious!
The photos don’t convey how incredibly long, crowded, and loud the street was. I was glad I got to experience the magic of the Quarter. (Again with the pop songs: this time Steely Dan’s Pearl of the Quarter.) It was a bit overstimulating, though! We spent nearly an hour trying to find just the right place to enjoy a daiquiri, and eventually ran out of time and said our goodbyes. Arne has one more day here, then two in New York City, and then is heading back to Germany.
I cycled back to my hosts’ place, where she made me an “authentic” daiquiri, after all! And then we ordered takeout from a Vietnamese place, which we ate with her son and partner.
This has been a lightning-fast experience of New Orleans, and extremely varied! I’ll not soon forget this part of my journey. Perhaps another time I can return, and spend more time exploring.
But tomorrow: long train to Atlanta! (I may or may not get out a blog post tomorrow night; the train is scheduled to arrive at 11 pm.)
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Do you have your own dream or project, and would like some support or collaborative brainstorming about it? Use the green “contact” button above to schedule a one-hour phone or video call with me!
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