With little time to spare, and some complicated plans in the offing over the next few weekends, Dr. Diarist and I took a brief, but exploratory, route to a chain bookstore’s coffee shop. We admit that this was a shameless ploy in order to get in a second Coffeeneuring trip, this weekend, as a hedge against an unknown future.
On Sunday, we set off on Basil and Argyll to check out the wild side of the asphalt wonder that is our largest local shopping center.
We’re short on cycle-able independent coffee shops where we live, and long on shopping malls, strip and otherwise — and, sometimes, pockets of unused land behind or around said malls. We discovered these retention ponds — formerly unknown to us — behind a huge Big Box store, well-hidden by an appealing overgrowth of various kinds of flora.
We drank very good coffee and shared an adequate, but only just, apple tart.
Day 5 Observations: 1) Say what you will about chain coffee shops — and there is much bad to be said of them — it is a good thing to find a predictably flavorful mug of coffee on a too-busy day on an unexpectedly stressed weekend and 2) hurray for Coffeeneuring, which got us out of the house for a second day in a row, when otherwise we’d never have considered it.
Tally for the day
Day 5 Location: Chain Bookstore Coffee Shop
Mileage today: 2.6 miles/ 4.1 km
Total Mileage for Coffeeneuring 2014 to date: 33.8 miles/ 54.3 km
Trip: 5/7