things i think about while powerwashing 135

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my fun five-borough weekend

For me, the Queens resident, sometimes it's tough to get around to all of the boroughs sometimes. My life admittedly does revolve around my little area of LIC and Midtown in Manhattan — maybe it's trying to get familiar with my local area, maybe it's laziness.

But this weekend, I bucked that trend, Though I did go to Midtown, hang out around Court Square, and went to Greenpoint-ish, I went further. I went to all five boroughs. And here is a mini summary if my five borough weekend.

Queens

Probably shouldn't even mention this one, seeing as this is where I live. I crossed the Queensboro Bridge three times this week — one round trip and one eBike citibike ride over to make it to brunch on time.

I uhhh also went to a larger variety of subway stations than normal? Here's a racoon.

Brooklyn

Didn't do too much here — initially came down to help an esteemed subscriber transport a Facebook marketplace pickup (got ghosted at the front door ....), but ended up going to some interesting shops around town including Hong Kong-style land to sea and the Meat Hook!

Manhattan

This one's pretty easy. Brunch in Manhattan, riding through the summer streets for the third week in a row, getting on the ferry to Staten Island.

I really liked biking through Summer Streets! Before the first weekend (when I rode with esteemed subscribers Seth McFarlane and Carolyn Xu) I had never ridden in a large-scale bike event. Navigating through hordes of bikers doing their own thing as well as dodging bikers was quite the experience, but nothing will beat bombing down hills in Harlem or riding through the Grand Central Terminal tunnels.

It also made my long rides much easier! Just the other day I hopped on the summer streets all the way to Inwood to make my bike ride to this next borough much easier.

The Bronx

I did not see much of the Bronx. I rode across the George Washington bridge (another bridge collected!) and immediately got on some side streets and made my way to Van Cortland park. I rode past some churches that were pretty nice but was too tired to appreciate the scenery.

My bike route took me through the entirety of Van Cortlandt Park onto the South County Trailway. It was here, that I was reminded of the blissful solitude of the trees swaying in the wind, just cruising through the narrow forest path on my way north. So if I had to say, Van Cortlandt Park is part of the Bronx, and I found it to be very beautful!

Staten Island

And at last, we have Staten Island. After convincing esteemed subscriber Emily Ding and a mutual friend, we found ourselves aboard the famously orange Staten Island ferry on our way to its namesake island.

I'm not sure what to say about Staten Island. To start, it's quite quaint — reminiscent of some of the cuter towns I visited in Indiana (maybe like Greencastle?). Every single thing seemed to be in place, to just exist without even serving some higher purpose. Watching a lamppost stand in the park was like seeing a cat lazing about in the sun — it just was.

As a bonus, we visited the National Lighthouse Museum whose director and board member talked to us and gave us a brief overview of the museum (and how Princess Anne is super into lighthouses as well).

museum of the week

i went to five boroughs ... i am tired ... skipping this week ...

anonymous subscriber news

Ain't that the truth lol.

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• anonymous subscriber said: how is there so much to do at work and not enough time

animal of the week

Who let this dawg out? Thank you to esteemed subscriber Jason J for sending this one in!

A Brown Hyena cresting a ridgeline in Skeleton Coast, Namibia. After wandering the coastline for a number of days, we spotted this rare individual contrasted from the barren lands it traversed. At first we lost sight of it, before it crested a low hill immediately adjacent to me. I was able to capture this image before retreating to a safer distance.

Send me your animal photos at ryan@torrtle.co!