2020 Commute 30 of 52 (From): #GVRAT1000K Day 4 from Downfall to Memphis Suburbs

Tomorrow is a rare Friday Bank Holiday, for what that’s worth during lockdown…too bad, too, as it promised to be grand considering it is the 75th anniversary of VE Day.  The photo is a rare selfie, this time from the bunker that my workspace has become whilst all but we essential workers are allowed on campus; you will forgive the absence of yet another not-so-rare Downfall overdub meme, especially as this is VED-Eve but there you have it.

Today was a bog-standard Thursday with the public transport ride in for checking on instrumentation, loading a few proteomics samples onto a column, and then run commuting home along the canals … 10.6 miles with a side trip down another canal. My GVRAT mileage, however, is reported as 12.7 since I get to include walkies (did a 2.1 mile West Brom walking loop to stretch and grocery shop post-shower).

The GVRAT segment started at the western extremes of Memphis TN out on Highway 61 and eventually stopped outside East Memphis on an old rails-to-trails path called the Greenline in the Shelby Farms Park and Garden.  My Day 4 stopping point actually looks like the kind of place I would want to run:

The Hop Garden, Harborne, Birmingham

Pub #2205:

Great to escape Hipster Hell, I sped along toward Harborne and soon found the streets I originally planned to run…success!  The Hop Garden, my original target, looked less than promising from outside but from within…Heaven.

The bartender looked like Cathy Carmichael, a friend from Atlanta in the olden times (our Debra‘s girlfriend way back then).  Spooky, but it was also lovely.  Not nearly as lovely as the floors made from old, German packing materials, but one trip down memory lane is always worth it.

There wasn’t a lot of custom in the bar despite the many board games and the 5-7 real ales (lost count) and the disparagement of lagers.  I was really intrigued by Downfall:

Unfortunately, it had nothing to do with Holocaust Memorial Day (on Sunday) nor anything to do with beer…unlike…THIS version of Downfall: