A few people on the forum have been talking about doing RAGBRAI next year.  RAGBRAI is a 432 mile journey across Iowa that spans 6 days during the last week of July (2008: July 20 - 26).  While you don’t have to be extremely fit, a good training regime to prepare for the 400+ mile trek is essential.  The site recommends at least 600 training miles prior to coming.  If you think about it, that isn’t too bad; 20 miles a day (excluding weekends) for 1 month will net you around 400 miles.  Keep that up for a few months and you are good to go.  With 8500 people riding you will be around plenty of folk with varying degrees of experience so don’t worry about lagging behind.

I’m still debating whether or not I will take the trip.  It means sacrificing a week of vacation time and while I wouldn’t hesitate to do this if I were single, I’ve got a family and their time to think about.  I’d be more inclined to go if I had friends that were willing to ride as well.  We’ll see.

Another fall is drawing to a close. The view from outside our apartment has been quite beautiful. The arrival of winter also means that our lease is coming up for renewal. And for yet another year (or even two) we think we’ll stick it out for a while. Harlem is changing…

Our complex has been doing renovations (for the better, surprisingly) since spring.

Stone tiling in the hallways, new paint and modern wallpaper, crown moldings, new lobby with a beautiful all glass entrance, a decent brick and iron fence that spans around the complex with lights on top of every column and a large, gated, well lit parking area. The downside: these great improvements will come at a price. Currently we pay exactly double the amount people are paying that have lived here for some time. Not too bad, but a bummer for anyone wanting to get in here to enjoy some of this newness. They will be paying nearly twice what we pay!

Our rent isn’t cheap per-se, but by current Manhattan trends some would say we “lucked out” and we couldn’t agree more. I think that is the dilemma we face when we think about “possibly” moving. While housing in Harlem is growing, the places to eat and shop are still scarce. If you love fatty foods, liquor stores and “soul food” then this area is heaven. You’ll be hard pressed to find foods like Italian, Greek, Indian, Spanish (yes, I said Spanish - there are no Spanish food joints in East Harlem) or even a good bagel. You’ll have to do some leg work to find decent sustenance, but for the less motivated looking around for a varied meal will be frustrating.

Aside from that minor gripe, the area is “safe-ish”. I say that only because it can be a little intimidating for some people to walk through this area at night. The sight of wanna-be thugs hanging out on nearly every corner doesn’t make for the most inviting scene.

With patience things will change; we’re just hoping we can tolerate this long enough to see it.