A fire hydrant like this should be reason enough to stop for a photo. I got to thinking of it when the question came up of when I was last in a Starbucks.
It’s from my ride north-to-south through Terre Haute last October. I wonder if I should have just ridden through on US-41. I spent a lot of time trying to follow side streets that didn’t take me far before they’d go no further, and then I’d have to find another north-south one. This bike lane goes past Indiana State University. There wasn’t much like this, though. It wasn’t bad or dangerous riding the rest of the way — it just seemed that it took a long time to get through the town.
I didn’t want to circle around the town because a) I wanted to visit the site of Fort Harrison on the north end, and b) I wanted to find something for lunch. I ended up stopping at a Starbucks on the south end of town, where two young women behind the counter gave me good route advice that I should have followed. And I got a cup of coffee and a bite to eat, too.
I’m no fan of Starbucks coffee, though what they sell is predictable and one can do worse. One can do a lot better, too.
Some members of my household have expressed concerned today about my supply of roasted beans. We’re kind of spoiled, though I would like to get even more spoiled.
My favorite sources of roasted beans are Upson’s in Kalamazoo, and Sweet Maria’s in Oakland, CA, and Great Northern in Traverse City. I recently discovered Great Northern. The roaster has an excellent (and somewhat expensive) coffee called Terruño Nayarita Mexican Natural. I just finished another great cup of it. It has a somewhat “minty” flavor, though Great Northern uses a lot more nuance than that to describe it.
It reminds me somewhat of a Panamanian coffee that one of the Phred touring list people who roasts his own coffee, sent me. It, too, has what I think of as minty flavor — maybe just a bit brighter than the Mexican. I used up most of it when it was still very fresh, but there is still a cup or two of it to be brewed. (Thanks, Mark!) It definitely makes me want to be roasting my own.
Being a high-quality retail coffee roaster has to be a tough business. A lot of people don’t care — they’re satisfied with Starbucks or anything that’s dark. And a good roaster will lose the customers who DO care because they will eventually be satisfied with nothing less than roasting their own. I’m afraid I’m soon going to be among them.
One of the difficult things about being on the road is finding good, brwed coffee to match what I make for myself at home. Even out in Seattle’s coffee country I have been surprised at how hard to find a coffee shop that gives you a choice of brewed coffees. And the coffee chains (e.g. Caribou Coffee) that used to give one a couple of choices now seem to have only one, take it or leave it.
But usually I don’t have time to mess with any elaborate coffee-making while doing my history rides. Even as it was, I ran out of daylight on the day of the photos in this article, and ended up hitching a ride to my destination at Maria Creek.
Maria Creek (and the Maria Creek cemetery) is off to the right, behind the tree line. We had a little walking to do to get there.
