Saturday, March 22
The gates to Bartram's Garden are closed when we arrive at 8:00 am, so we park in an adjacent lot, which looks like it belongs to an abandoned housing project. A few cars scattered here and there, but mostly empty. No signs say "don't park here." Looks okay to Rene, although I'm not one-hundred percent convinced.
The Uber driver arrives a few minutes later, and we crawl in the back of his small car. "Do you think it's okay if we leave our car here?" I ask. He studies me in the rear view mirror for a second, and then says, "Do you know where you are?".
"Yes, of course. We're right next to Bartram's Garden."
He studies me in the rear view mirror again. "No, do you know where you are?"
Okay, trick question, apparently. "Not sure what you mean."
"Do you know where you are... this is a very bad neighborhood."
Ah, okay. We explain what we're doing there, that we're following the East Coast Greenway, which passes right through this area. He relaxes his gaze and becomes interested in learning more. He says the car will be fine (phew!), and we chat amicably for the entire ride to our starting point at the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum. He is shocked to hear tell of our adventures on foot and bike, as if he never imagined anyone doing something like that. We learn that the sounds of gunshots and midnight yelling are normal to him, but the idea of being out in the quiet of nature is terrifying. "Fascinating," I'm thinking to myself, in my inner Spock voice. I couldn't help casting the occasional surreptitious glance up and down various neighborhood streets as we passed through.
The first mile or two in the wildlife refuge is along a gravel road adjacent to I-95. You can tell you're walking by a nice marsh, but really can't see much of interest, and the highway noise is intrusive. Eventually you peel off along a path into the middle of the refuge, and the views improve dramatically. Birds are everywhere, and the trails are busy with walkers, birders and photographers. We paused for a bit to admire a few tundra swans practicing take-offs and landings, and a couple of mute swans preening for their audience.
After hiking through four miles of wetlands, you pop out into the surrounding neighborhood. It all seemed fine to us as we ambled down streets lined with tidy townhomes for another mile or so, but eventually things started to look a little rougher, and our driver's words rang in my ears. My sentiments are a little difficult to convey, but I started feeling like this "privileged guy" who really had no right to be there. Not that I was worried about anything bad happening - especially on a Saturday morning with few people out and about - but that I was intruding on somebody else's space. So we decided to abandon the official Greenway route, which wandered around trying to stay close to any park it could find, and walk the main road directly back to our car, shaving off two miles (main roads seemed less intrusive to me). There was the occasional, imposing, historic building with interesting architecture to admire, one of which we were convinced had been converted to a jail, until we realized it was a middle school - a rather depressing thought. On the other hand, we ambled by many small shops that suggested a diverse set of immigrants had established their first toe-hold on the American dream. I can imagine this same gritty vibe played out on a many a street in New York City back in the days of mass immigration (and probably still does today). Overall, it was an uneventful walk back to the gardens where our car awaited.
Bartram's Garden was fascinating. John Bartram is well known among natural history buffs as an early American naturalist who collected and described many New-World species, partly in service to the king, before the revolution. The grounds of his estate along the Schuylkill River hosted many dignitaries back in the day, in the likes of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson. We enjoyed reading all the informative signs and walking through the grounds.
Next up: The walk across Philly proper.
Today's Miles: 8.3
Cumulative Miles: 49.1
Bird of the Day: First place goes to the trumpeter swans and their comical running take-offs. Second place goes to a black vulture doing his best wind vane impression atop a chimney.
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| Bonus Points if You Spot the Tundra Swan |
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