I need to catch up, so I’ll start from here and work my way back.
This past Saturday, a warm spring day at the end of November (good preparation for the dumping of snow the next day), Suzanne and I hopped on our bikes and joined the C3 Coffee Crawl, during which I had one quarter of a leftover donut, one bottle of water, a cup of too-sweet Chai, and a glass of iced tea.
The Coffee Crawl, similar to pub crawls of olde only with pedaling instead of staggering, was a fundraiser for the High Plains Food Bank and, I think, was the first of its kind in our Fair City. We started downtown, on the first floor of the Chase bank building (for Amarillo, a skyscraper of many floors and more than four elevators), and after a few rousing speeches outside the sponsor of our ride, the Ground Cafe coffee shop, our gaggle of cyclists mushed onward, hogging two otherwise empty lanes of the road.
I have to say, this was quite fun. All sorts of shapes and sizes of bikes came out for the ride. Some Seussian in height and style, some old, some wide, some frighteningly expensive. It was great to be part of a massive group of plain, happy riders, not hammerheads trying to make 100k in under six minutes. Goose horns honked and little bells dinged as we rode . . . well, cheerfully. That’s a good word to describe it.
Our first stop was a new bike shop in town called BikeLife, a small but very bike savvy place. I had no idea they were even there, so it was great piece of PR on their part to introduce them to slackers like me who, apparently, need to keep up more with local biking news. They were not, of course, a coffee shop, but they did have tiny cups you could fill from a push top coffee dispenser. The size of the cups forced people to drink delicately, pinkies extended.
This is where I first noticed the Woman With Dog. I’m not sure what kind of dog it was. I’ll call it the Small White breed. While riding she kept it attached to her body in some kind of sling. When we stopped, she let it walk around, but it toddled frantically as if the batteries inside of it were slightly too powerful. Or maybe it was the coffee.
Our second stop was Hastings, the mothership of a chain of entertainment stores that carries books, music, video games, movies, and gum. The coffee shop area here, although feeling slightly corporate, was pretty nice. I skipped getting a drink because they use Chai-In-A-Box, which actually I think everyone uses, but some shops are just trickier about hiding it.
Stop three was at Shawn Martin’s Art Cafe, a local art-slash-coffee bar. Suzanne and I settled here for a bit with the group (now about half our original touring size), and enjoyed some tasty beverages. On the table next to us was a interrupted game of Lord of the Rings Risk, which I had a fleeting selfish thought to join.
Our final stop was an coffee shop on Historic Route 66 (this is a fragment of the famous road that used to stretch from Chicago to LA). This place was called the 806, which is the area code for Amarillo. 806 also spells Fuzzy Shoe if you use the Harry Lorayne Memory Technique.
We took a long break here, talking with our friend Jennifer whose husband is a Merchant Marine and knows a thing or two about pirates. We sat on some old furniture circa College Dorm Room Age and lazed about until it was time to go. The bike group, now a loose collection, was supposed to move on back to the Ground Cafe a bit further downtown, but Suzanne and I ended our tour at the 806. By now it was close to noon, and the kids had had the run of the house for about three hours, so it was time to get back.
And what do you know? When we got back the house was tidy and the kids were happily reading. Those sneaky kids!
Video is here! Picts of the coffee crawl are here. They’re on the inexcusably horrible Amarillo Globe News website. Just focus your eyes on the five centimeter square content box and you’ll be fine. Otherwise the flashing, shiny ads will drive you insane.
