Trip Number: 1
Where: Black Cat Coffee, Portland, ME
Date: Monday, October 10, 2016
Katie: Decaf with Cream and Sugar
Addie: Hot Chocolate
Mileage: 3.35 miles
Bike Friendliness:  Decent.  There are a couple of street signs out front you can lock to, but there’s almost always another bike there.  A very short distance down the street are a couple of actual bike racks.

So I got a new bike back in June and quickly became obsessed with biking.  Not racing, just riding my bike places.  But give it time.

Usually when I get obsessed about a new thing, I try to find as much to read about it as possible – not so much technical reading as reading about other’s experiences with my new obsession.  I love reading blogs for that reason.  One blog that I stumbled across, Chasing Mailboxes, has this great idea of going Coffeeneuring.  You’ll have to check out the blog post yourself.  I’ve tried to explain it to my entire family, and no one gets it.  I guess they get it, they just don’t understand why it has “neuring” at the end.  The gist of it is that you bike to a different coffee shop 7 times in a period of 7 weeks.

I’m hoping to actually get close to 14 visits; one set of 7 with my 9-year old daughter, Addie and another set a bit farther afield with my husband.  Addie is my constant companion and not as busy as Mike, so I’m a little more confident in accomplishing the first set.

Even though we had a four day weekend this weekend (3 for me), we struggled to fit it in.  We had a big party on Saturday, so we were getting ready for that then it rained ALL day on Sunday, and we’re just not that hard core (yet).  I decided to work from home on Monday, so that we could squeeze it in on a work break.

We decided on Black Cat Coffee since it’s the closest to us in The Deering Neighborhood’s cute little “downtown”.  The Coffeeneuring rules call for a minimum of a two mile bike ride, so we took a “longcut” through Evergreen Cemetery.  The cemetery is one of my favorite places in town.  It’s where I run all winter when the roads are too messy everywhere else.  It’s where Addie learned how to ride her bike.  And it’s beautiful this time of year.

There’s a little loop that goes from one of the entrances to the chapel and back.

Addie and I often race that loop together.  Her rules – I have to do 5 loops to her 4 AND count 5-Mississippi’s before I start.  I haven’t beaten her yet.  Yesterday we did four loops and just chatted it was nice.  She talks to me non-stop when we’re biking, and I can hardly ever hear her.  It’s frustrating.  In the cemetery, it’s great though because there are no cars and we can ride side-by-side, so I actually can hear her.

We ventured down to the duck ponds, so she could practice going down some bigger hills before we expand our biking into downtown Portland.  She did great.

We finally made our way to Black Cat and were pretty hungry by then.

We each ordered bagels.  One of my favorite things about Black Cat is that they bring in bagels from Union Bagel and toast and butter them perfectly.  My favorite is the sesame.  Addie went for a plain with cream cheese and a hot chocolate.  In spite of being very excited about Coffeeneuring, I’m really not much of a coffee connoisseur, so I just got a plain old coffee.

Black Cat has a lot of interesting looking options though.
I’ve also been excited about trying their homemade ice cream sweetened with honey, but coffee time never seems to be the right time for ice cream – for me anyway.  One of these days I’ll try it. Because I was working from home, I brought my laptop to do some work, and Addie brought her tablet.  We felt very hip working from the coffee shop.

Looking forward to our next adventure!  Thanks for reading!