saturday road trip

so, every chance we get, my husband and i get on his motorbike, and try to find interesting places to go for a day.

yesterday, we went to a town called bethlehem, pa.
i had wanted to check out this place...
the banana factory...

http://www.bananafactory.org/


the banana factory is an art center. there are artists studios, galleries, classrooms, a big glassblowing workshop...

i had heard about it a while ago, and was interested in seeing it...so off we went...
(it's always good to have a destination...) it was a great atmosphere. i really wish there was a place like that closer to where i live...

the best thing about going places on the motorbike is that we go all around on back roads and see things and places that we wouldn't normally see driving in the car on a highway.
(it also takes a LOT longer to get places this way...but that is the fun of it ;) )

we found an architectural salvage place that we stopped in.
it was like a big old barn FULL of all sorts of cool stuff!
i got a couple of small things, but really, it was sort of expensive there.

we also stopped at this "antiques and oddities" shop.
i got a few things there too!
i have to be really selective and buy small things to travel with, which is sometimes a bummer when i see something really cool! and i always swear i will go back to get it in the car. haha.

bethlehem is a way bigger town/city than i thought!
it seems to be split by a river in half.
there is a big steel mill there that closed down. it is still standing there...and it is GINORMOUS!!! but they put a casino in it? or somehow made part of it a casino.
i dunno.
we just drove past, and i wasn't able to get a photo...
but we'll go back.
here's a link to some really nice photos of it though...
shaun o'boyle photos

musikfest was going on there, which seemed to take over the entire town!!!
people everywhere, tents, music, jugglers, food, everything...


i don't know what i was thinking, but i didn't take many photos this trip at all, and the ones that i did aren't very good :(
sorry.

the one thing i keep thinking about from this trip was when we stopped to eat our packed lunch in the park, there were 3 homeless guys sitting just down a little from us.
the one came over to us to ask my husband for a cigarette.
he had been drinking (everyone seemed to be with the musikfest there)
but...
he seemed to think we were homeless too.
he invited us up to this spot in the mountains where there were "others" and we'd be "safe"
i thought this was really lovely, and i never had an invitation like that before
(but, to be honest, i was wondering what the state of us was like for him to think we were homeless)

he also thought i was 22 years old :D
maybe it was the drink ;)

he went back to his friends and came back a few minutes later to give me a little bottle of shampoo.
said so i could wash my hair.
that i gotta keep my hair clean.

i felt sorta bad taking his shampoo, but we were a little, erm, short for words here...
and he seemed so happy to be giving it to me.

he was telling my husband that he was unemployed and all of that...
which made me feel bad thinking of all of the people that worked at the steel mill before and now were out of work.

i hope they are safe up there. very nice fellas...

i'm thinking now...where to go next?