We ended up at Little Sheba’s, and as we were walking in, a couple asked Thomas and I, “Is this a good restaurant?  We saw the billboards on I-70 saying you had lots of great shops and restaurants.”  It was fun to put myself in the shoes of someone who had just come off the highway to explore the central parts of Richmond, and so we reviewed the local options with them excitedly; they ended up heading to Ghyslain (sorry Steve).  We enjoyed our food and the live music at Sheba’s, Ben loved his sandwhich (John Boy’s Stupid Idiot) and a taste of the pizza that Mark ordered.

We passed up Sheba’s legendary brownies for the even more legendary (sorry Steve) dessert at Ghyslain just down the street, where we got the thumbs up from the couple we’d directed there earlier – their dinner was great.  I had the Brazilian, Ben had the Royale, Aaron had the Charlemagne, Thomas had some gelato, and Mark had…what did you have, Mark?  It was nice to know we impressed a guy who can get some pretty amazing desserts in New York City: “Awesome by any standard.”  I don’t think he was just saying that.

Then we biked up E street to Glen Miller Park, talking about the conversions of old industrial buildings and Richmond’s place in history along the way.  (“We used to MAKE bikes here.”)  We arrived to a fairly packed Roosevelt Hill watching a Beatles cover band belt out familiar tunes while people danced and cheered under the big orange moon.  It was quite a scene, and it was a great wandering summer night.

There are lots of places in the world that provide “quite a scene,” but I thought that if I were coming off the highway or traveling cross country on a bike and unexpectedly got to see these little slices of life in Richmond, I’d probably remember the experience for at least a little while.  Hey, nice place we got here.

WarmShowers.org is a resource for facilitating just that for cyclists, and it’s a great way to find or offer lodging.  You can provide as much or as little information about your location and “amenities” as you want, and you’re under no obligation to host anyone at any particular time.  It’s similar to other resources like CouchSurfing.org or even Mennonite Your Way.

I was a little nervous about how the first hosting experience would go – what would they expect of me, would they stay up late into the night drinking my beer and watching old Weird Al Yankovich movies, etc.  But these folks were very quiet and low-key, and as you might expect from people who have been on the road for two months, they mostly just wanted to rest and take it easy.  I enjoyed doing a bit of cooking and doting to help make their time that much more pleasant.

If you’re a cyclist who might take a trip at some point, or if you have some space to spare for those passing through your area, consider checking out WarmShowers.org.

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• indexed: astute and sometimes funny observations about the state of the world, presented as simple diagrams on index cards.
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• FAIL Blog: Pictures and Videos of Owned, Pwnd and Fail Moments: in the tradition of lolcats, some really funny and scary stuff here, like this abomination of truth in marketing.
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