Pack ride to Bark Espresso

     I have to admit I'd been hoping it'd be nice enough out today by standard standards to go for a ride. While I enjoy the rain, neither of my usual riding buddies care for a sky full of water, and I picked this spot especially to go to with my buddies. Fortunately the sky had cleared, but not so much as to be cloud free. Since we were going to Bark Espresso I figured these would be the best funky socks, and Mac seemed to agree.

     Putting the basket on Scamper got Mac into an immediate frenzy. It was pretty warm out, but I decided on the flannel blanket, just in case, and it is a bit chilly going downhill. 

the jaunty kerchief is just because

    We actually went the way I usually go on my new commute. Cutting down 155th, going up 1st, heading down the turn off into the suburban neighborhood near Roosevelt and Northgate. Its sad because through the whole neighborhood there's signs telling people to slow down for various reasons. The ones near my home are all Vision Zero signs, proclaiming 20 is plenty! Which is largely ignored by everyone capable of going over 20 mph, In the area near Roosevelt and Northgate are remind drivers its a deaf child area, and that they love their pets and children, who by the way, play here. There's all kinds of traffic calming ideas, round-abouts, inset curbs. It doesn't matter, people not only ignore it, they will drive as close as possible to me to pass. Usually having a dog in the back gets people go blink and go "oh hey another person" but today was one of those days where I wondered if my whole little family was going to be wiped out by someone's idiot miscalculation. The three dead squirrels we passed didn't add to my confidence.

     We hit Roosevelt and to our surprise there was work being done for the bike lane there. We rolled up to the coffee shop, and yeah, because it was on Roosevelt, I sort of expected there to be a bike rack somewhere. To my surprise there was no rack to be found. At all. There was a handicap railing, but I wasn't going to lock up to that (it would block the ramp).

We elected to lean them against the outside walk railing. Well, after I got a nice shot of Barry on his first coffeeneauring ride. Pinkie sat this one out, but even with Mac strapped to Scamper, I had to moderate my pace so I didn't drop him. The coffee place is actually a set of shops, sort of a pet center of sorts. We only went into the coffee side. As you can see in the above left picture there's a second door, that's the Hound Lounge, where you can go in with your dog. It was nice, with dog art on the walls, prints stacked on the side, and a few tables. It would've been a lovely place to sit, but we decided it was too nice outside to bother with bringing the bikes in, preferring to make use of the outside tables.

    While Ben got coffee, I got a pumpkin steamer, and we shared a couple of breakfast sandwiches, making it a sort of brunch. Mac had a peanut doggy latte.  We watched the other people and dogs come and go. I have to say my steamer was a bit watery (oh goddess I sound like a snob, but if you don't use whole milk it ends up that way), but nicely spiced. We stopped by another shop on the way back, and at the intersection, both bike and dog were admired greatly. A group of nice folks wanted to know why I rode a folding bike, how old was my dog, and did I know how just amazingly cute he is with that kerchief? (I totally do know and that's why). The usual, out biking with my dog stuff, except when they told me they didn't see many people out with there dogs. I feel I see a lot of people out biking with there dogs, maybe that's because of all the bike blogs I read. It does tend to make me feel like the things I do are totally normal. Making our way back we decided to stop at the Doughnut Plains, its a nice place to take a break.

All and all the trip was about 6.5 miles, Not bad. We might've added a bit of blacktop to our ride since we took a hook from 1st to Meridian.  It was such a lovely ride, Aside from the cars and the road kill, and the sharrows that did absolutely nothing for traffic calming. Although we did have a funny moment when the car next to me at one intersection had a little dog too. Ben thought it was funny I've gone to 4 shops and only 1 had a bike rack, and that one was kind of an anit rack at that. Still, I've got three shops left so my odds are good one of them will have bike parking. Right? Next stop is Chickalatte, no matter the weather.