Pedaling around Peoria during the pandemic, January 2021


It's Monday, January 12, 2021 and as usual I pedaled around Peoria this morning, which is a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona. I stop for a to-go coffee at my local McDonald's, but other than that I don't go into any buildings, other than the park restrooms. Generally I spend about two hours every morning out pedaling around, but sometimes it's longer, like on Sundays, which I've always enjoyed because of the amazing quiet and solitude, going back to long before COVID-19. 

I've had the trike for about three years now, but it was only last year that I really got used to it, and started pedaling around the neighborhood. I live in Glendale, but since I like to ride in the morning I always travel north by northwest. This is important in early morning, and especially in the winter, when the sun is in the southeast.

The McDonalds does a nice business with its drive-through, although the dining area is closed, and I can go inside and get my coffee, which I drink while I lean against the railing, watching the world go by. And mostly I see compliance to the mask regulations, and as for social distancing, I really don't know, as I've never been someone who likes to crowd into bars, or stadiums, or anywhere like that. Since I see a lot of cars at the local neighborhood bar, I imagine that these people enjoy congregating together.

And speaking of congregations, I was surprised to see a church in Peoria, which I was passing, filled with cars in the parking lot yesterday (Sunday). I haven't been paying attention to the official rules and regulations in Arizona, or Maricopa county, but I just kinda thought that gathering together in groups in an enclosed area, especially without masks, wasn't such a good idea right now. This congregation apparently felt otherwise, and I circled around the edge of the parking lot to confirm that it was really happening. I also went past a park with groups of people, also unmasked, throwing around footballs. I just kept riding.

This is indeed an interesting time, and living in Arizona gives me a view of the polar point of views, one being extreme caution, the other being, well, the opposite. I have friends who don't believe in what they call "lamestream media", and since I used to be a college teacher, they may be a bit suspicious of me, too.

Let's see, what else can I tell you? It was chilly this morning, but it warmed up quickly. The low was close to forty, and the high today will be over sixty. And to me, that means great riding weather, so I'll continue to pedal around, and I'll let you know what I see.

This was my report. There will be others, and this is mine.

If you like pictures of old-time Phoenix, please become a member of History Adventuring on Patreon. I share a LOT of cool old photos there, copyright-free, with no advertising. Your support makes it happen! Thank you!

Click here to become a Patron!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why cars in the future won't need stop signs, red lights, or stripes on the road

Image
Time-travel with me into the future. Where we're going, we'll still need roads, but our cars won't need the kind of stuff that human drivers need, like stop signs, or stuff painted on the road. And if you're already panicking that computers will take over, don't worry, they already have. The fact that you're reading this right now combines so much amazing computing power that it would have been unthinkable to anyone in the 1960s, or '70s, when I was a kid. Speaking of being in the geriatric age group, if you're like me or older, you took a lot of pride in knowing the rules of the road, such as what to do at a stop sign if four cars approach at the same time, the difference between a "yield" sign and a "merge" sign, or maybe how to parallel park. But calm down there old-timer, that type of knowledge will just be as quaint as how to use a horse and buggy is nowadays. Sorry! The best way to picture how traffic will flow in the future is
Read more

Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?

Image
As someone who has been interested in history since I was a little kid, I've always asked the most childish questions, and quite often never got an answer. As a kid, I was told to run along and play, and don't bother the grownups, so I set my questions aside to work on when I myself became a grownup. But some questions I really haven't found a satisfactory answer for, and get thrown away as I find myself learning the more important stuff. I now understand the grownups, but the kid in me still has childish questions like "Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?" The first question to ask is whether a particular style (whether hair, clothing, etc.) was in style at the time. The moustache was, and you can Google a photo of Charlie Chaplin, who wore the same style of moustache at the time, and quite stylishly. The wide lapels were in style in the 1930s, as was were the tall shirt collars and small ties. But the haircut wasn't - it's just awful. Me
Read more

Watching a neighborhood grow and change in Phoenix, Arizona

Image
I stopped to take a closer look yesterday at where the old Circle K had been in my neighborhood, which is a suburb of Phoenix. And it's got me to thinking about how much Phoenix grows and changes over the years, and how people feel about it. This particular neighborhood was built in the mid 1980s, when there had been only a smattering of houses and a community college (Glendale Community College, built in 1965). There are some houses that I can tell are from the 1970s, and a few even older, but what happened here is that the neighborhood suddenly appeared in 1985 or thereabouts. There are three shopping centers on the corner of 67th Avenue and Peoria - the one in the photo is called "Peoria Station", and it was designed to kinda look like a train station. The other three are called Westporte Village, Brittany Square, and Crossroads Plaza. I've lived in this neighborhood for a very long time, and no one ever uses those names, even though the signs are still up. But the
Read more