#bikesploration

[meruasiaretreat-blog]

Exploring our backyard on a Sunday afternoon... . . #angkorthom #angkorwat #westgate #westbaray #theroadlesstraveled #escapethecrowds #avoidthecrowds #bikesploration #sundaybikeride #bike #secretspot #hiddengem #redroad #stoneface #angkorian #Bayon #travel #explore #adventure #wanderlust #meruasia #meruasiaretreat #sunday #sundayexploring #cambodia #siemreap (at Meru Asia Retreat)

[meredithplayground]

i feel like all my posts have been more Official Sounding since they p much all relate to my job but i’m gonna just say the past night or two have been so great in helping me feel at home because all i’ve been up to is prettymuch doing stuff with my friends (i think i’m making actual friends!) and working for people (commissions! taking care of kids!) and that’s all it takes for me to feel like a real person doing her thing (with obvious breaks for coffee and drawing)

so last night after party-hopping between birthday bonfires and stag-and-does  i rode down barton to meet some dudes for a ~bikesploration~ (their term, not mine) but got the RKO from a blown back tube. since i was over halfway to the meeting spot i just kept walking that way, and was treated to the view of barton east at 1 am on a weekend and it was a little eerie but mostly SO COOL.

i saw so many things that i know i’m not supposed to, and not because they’re secret or supposed to be hidden, but because cities are built to have places that you’re supposed to just drive past and ignore and never interact with. (i made a comic about that today and will probably post it soon and work more on the idea later) i walked through empty or broken-down carparks, backs of hotel and apartment buildings, car dealership spillover lots and the like.

eventually the dudes found me and we walked back together to the stop where i could catch the last bus at 2 am. we had time to kill and luckily there was a playground nearby so we climbed fences and told dirty jokes and swung around on monkey bars til the bus came.

chris asked me if this is the kind of thing i used to do back in baltimore and i said yes kind of, because for all the bike parties and city hangs i had with my people back in baltimore, i used to save certain nights for myself - nights like this one, where i’d had a little too much time to think about being alone, nights that purged the streets with short blasts of warm rain and echoed with no signs of life. i used to wait until i was feeling good and angsty and then i’d go ride through the weirdest streets i could find and take the longest possible route to the royal farms to buy cigarettes. and as nice as that was,

this was better.

[aviewfromtwowheels]

Karate Monkey