A Coffeeneuring#7/Bird/'Cross Ramble
9/11/13 Saturday
Location: Please & Thank You, 800 E.Market St. Louisville 40206
Miles: 22
Today was a vastly rambling ramble, all with the sub/con/pre/uber-text that I felt like crap, rode like crap, and give my own half-empty reality 2 stars, but in the end it was a pretty decent way to spend a Saturday morning. The fam had activities, so I loaded up the QB for some spotty bike-related activity.
Caperton Swamp
Birds were on the menu first. Actually I intended to do a kind of bike-n-bird at several locations, but we'll get to that. Starting off was a bit chilly at 38F, but the sun did a nice job warming things up. Once at Caperton I parked the QB and used the glasses for a while:
Northern Cardinal (otherwise known as a gd "cardinal")
Robin
Carolina Chickadee
Carolina Wren
White-breasted Nuthatch
Tufted Titmouse
Black vulture
Mallard Duck
Great Blue Heron (@ Eva Bandman)
**flycatcher of some kind
**warbler of some kind
**fuzzy mammal tail of some kind. Red n bushy. Didn't look like a squirrel's
Have I mentioned that I'm really not very good at all those damn little brown birds in the bushes?
Cyclocross
This weekend is the Derby City Cup, of which I forgot while planning my bird-n-bike ramble. I fought a stupid wind coming down River Rd. and stopped to gander for a while at the 'cross races, although it was early, so only the midget children were racing. Too bad their 50lb bodies are still faster than mine. I might venture down tomorrow for the pros, but I'm sitting here today planning my nap instead.
Coffee
Once I left I looped downtown to visit the downtown Sunergos for my coffeeneuring stop. It first led me to find that the downtown Sunergos is no more than a coffee stop, not really shop. More so, it's closed on the weekends. Hmm. One gent came out of an adjacent building and informed me of the Atlantic 5 cafe (which serves Sunergos), which I couldn't find. It looks nice in the pics. I think I missed it because I was arguing with some old, drunk-looking crackhead from IN who almost took me up speeding up the right side basically halfway in my lane. I yelled and he retorted something about "downtown". I encouraged him to take his talents back to IN.
After strike #2 I decided to toodle back towards NuLu where I stopped at Please & Thank You, which is a twee little shop that serves lots of goodies including coffee, which I bought a nice Kleen Kanteen of. It's nice enough that the tables were pretty much filled, so I sat outside and ate my "egg slider", which was a perfectly good egg n cheese sandwich on a bun. I suspect the preciousness of the established is counterbalanced which what apparently are outofthisworld cookies. I wish I had known. NuLu is sort of hip now, so you should probably check it out, I guess. It has a record shop somewhere in there.
The rest
The coffee was good and hot, so I departed and with my hot thermos and went up to OYLC where I basically the next 1.5hrs. I drank, read, yapped, yammered, and twerked. They had just ordered lunch from Molly Malones (black bean burgers) so I added one on and enjoyed Derek's fine bicycle delivered vegan fare. Jimmy and I talked a fair amount of youth soccer and 'cross and I just whiled away some time not being at work and not raking leaves.
I arrived with a sore back, sore legs (Whew!! 22 miles!), and a generally grumpy disposition. I don't really know how people live in super-windy locales, because the 55F, 25mph wind gusts whipping in from the west weren't high on the list of fun.
Comments
I think I'd enjoy having a bird watching coach to join me on my rides to show me the what/how of this curious activity.
I also had 20 Saturday miles, but they were all on the tandem.