Small town Pennsylvania

Without spending more than 10 hours a week doing yoga and about 10 hours a week getting ready for or doing laundry from yoga, I feel like I have all this extra time right now! 

For lack of anything better to share right now (I am debating whether or not to post about the mess that occurred at my house on Sunday...), here are some fun photos from last week's trip to Philadelphia. 

I have tons of cases there for some reason, and usually end up working downtown since many are in federal or county court there, but last week, I ended up in a Philly suburb because that was where our mediator of choice officed. 

That is the most disappointing thing about the trip -- it was a mediation, so there's no reason to believe I'll be back there again.  The two best things about the trip (aside from kicking @ss at the mediation) were the insanely lovely 23 mile running/biking trail across the street from my hotel, and an awesome ice cream place about 6 blocks from my hotel.

This was driving up to the hotel, I got excited because I knew I was close, thanks to GPS, and I saw this bike sign for a path crossing the street:   

Hotel was a Residence Inn (not many options there!), but that meant a full fridge: 

And the "fill my fridge" card.  If the room had included a blender, I would have been so happy.  I could have placed orders for spinach, frozen fruit, carrot juice and soy milk, and I could have made my usual breakfast smoothie.  But no blender (probably for liability reasons, see?  I can't help thinking like a lawyer sometimes), just a microwave and a coffee maker:

On my way out in the evening, I scoped out the running trail.  Signs with mileage meant I knew it would be good: 

But this street nearby made me nervous.  See, I think of Pennsylvania in general as a hilly place, and Dallas is not a hilly place.  This street had a large incline, so I was worried the running trail that ran perpendicular to this street might be horribly hilly:

Small town signs: 

An odd statue at the Veteran's Memorial Park.  Not sure exactly why they depicted a family, I mean, I suppose most vets have families and maybe feel like they're fighting on behalf of families? 

The dedication plaque, to all vets, whether in war, conflict or peace: 

Armed forces flags: 

I like this picture because it gives a good sense of the main drag in town.  Lots of little non-chain restaurants, many with outdoor seating, on street metered parking, crosswalks.  Very cute: 

And big churches on the main drag.  If this were in Europe, I'd have gone in them and taken photos just for the sake of doing so.  I think I have roughly 1 billion European church interior photos taken so far by me over the course of my lifetieme. 

The town's public library (oh, and a runner, just running down the sidewalk in the evening): 

This was a diner with a neat mural outside: 

This was my destination, a little ice cream place called Scoops that had been recommended to me: 

Menu options.  "Water ice" is a big thing there, but it didn't appeal to me as much as ice cream.  As for flavors, I knew I'd get black raspberry, but for my second scoop, there were about 10 flavors that appealed to me: 

Banana splits, not mine: 

What remained of my ice cream cone on the walk back to the hotel, that's mostly black raspberry, with a bit of cherry vanilla remaining on top: 

Another picture of the library: 

A random "discoutn shoes and clothes" store right on the main street.  Rent must not be too high, or the business must do better than I'd expect. 

And of course plenty of local sports apparel in store windows: 

Historical plaque.  I don't like the hyphenation of Revolution.  Seems there should have been a better way to do that. 

As I went a different way back to the hotel, I saw another part of the running trail and was excited to see it went all the way to Philadelphia!  That's about 15 miles away!  I knew I'd be set in the morning, and was actually wishing I'd come prepared (time, clothes, fuel, etc.) to do a long run.  It would have been fun to do a 15 miler or so on the trail. 

 

There you have it, all you ever wanted to see in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania!