Manhattan Bridges #2,3,4: Bike, Walk, Run

I've lived right by the George Washington Bridge for over 4 years now. Pretty early on in my time here, I wanted to walk across the bridge. I've talked about it with many people. I even decided that since I couldn't find someone to go with me, I'd go by myself, but never actually did.

Until today.

The intention was to ride a bike across last night. I was so excited that I even took a picture of the bridge with the sun setting on my way home from picking up a book at the Fort Washington Library.

Only by the time I got home (later than planned) and to the bike store to get a new inner tube (5 minutes before they closed) and got home and realized I didn't know how to put the inflated tire back on (maybe I should have taken the whole bike to the bike repair shop...) and texted several friends and called my brother (who recently bought both a road and a mountain bike) the tire still wasn't back on, and it was dark. Finally, I got my dad on the phone, and he talked me through how to disengage the front brakes, and I got the tire back on at the same time two of my neighbors showed up at my door to help!

Since it was dark, I didn't want to go by myself, but I didn't want to postpone my bridge crossing any longer either.

That's when I had the brilliant idea to call my brother Craig and commit to riding over the bridge in the morning.

With my commitment to him in my mind, I didn't snooze my (second) alarm, I dragged myself out of bed, put on the work out clothes I layer out while on the phone with Craig, and carried the bike downstairs.

It was a beautiful morning - both on the Manhattan side:





And on the New Jersey side:



On my ride over, I passed a senior missionary, and on the way back I overtook her at the end of the bridge. She graciously took a photo for me, so I have visual proof I was on a bike on the bridge!



And I couldn't resist a bridge selfie :)



And after such a successful morning, I was inspired!

After work I took the 4/5 up to 125th and walked over the 3rd Ave Bridge and saw some fun things between chain link fence and stuck to the tresses:

 

Then I walked over to the Madison Ave Bridge and ran back over into Manhattan - oh yeah!



 

On the Manhattan side of the Madison Avenue Bridge I found this awesome mini-local lending library! I love finding gems like that - reminds me why I need to keep exploring the world around me.