You know that you're a hardcore (coffee) drinker when...

You feel the compulsory need to bore out that little carburetor in the top of the lid in order to maximize your draw.

Labels: Coffee

Preamble
At least once a year, usually in the fall I take a nature trip into the woods. It is my chance to clear my head, reset the scale, shock the system, pick your analogy here. Basically I get to unplug from my real life for a period of time, plug myself into some wilderness and find out just exactly who it is I am again. All this to say that I don't get out much, I guess.

This year I set my sights on a solo hiking trip into the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. There are several trails available in the BWCAW, but I chose the Angleworm lake trail because it is a 14-mile loop, the distance seemed about right for an easy three day hike and based on other trip reports I had read (You can find them if you Google for them) the Angleworm truly looked like a beautiful hike.

I live a sedentary life, which is a fancy way of saying that I am a fat guy who works in an office. I knew that I would have to prepare for this trip, so I did so primarily by training on an elliptical machine in our basement that has for the most part served as a coat rack over the years. I also did a lot of stretching and a fair amount of bicycling.

In addition to physical preparation I did do a fair amount of preparation in terms of planning my gear and studying my map. In all fairness, everything that I did to prepare for the trip could probably fill a different post; I just didn't want to give the impression that I threw my pack in the truck and drove up north on an impulse.



Day 1

Getting There
I'm not what you call an early riser, but with the trip at hand I was off like a shot when the alarm went off. After some last minute fumbling and a hurried good-bye to my groggy wife, I was out the door just before 5AM.

The drive was unremarkable for the first couple of hours, save for the volume of southbound early bird commuters, making their way in to the cities. I grinned and breathed a quiet prayer of thanks that I wasn't one of them. The sun greeted me just south of Cloquet and lit up the Birches that tower on the hill just west of Interstate 35. The colors were so brilliant that I was momentarily startled and feared that I may still be laying in my bed, dreaming. By 8:30 I was passing through my fellow blogger Eric's neck of the woods and by 9:30 I was refueling in downtown Ely.

As I made my way to Echo Trail I was very pleased that everything seemed to be going so well. I thought of the day's hike and imagined what sort of wildlife I might encounter. Daydreaming, I was shocked back into reality when I rounded a corner and a large bird leaped up off the road and into a nearby tree. I stopped, dumbfounded because I had interrupted the breakfast of a family of Bald Eagles. I managed to snap off a couple of shots at these shy fellows (They seemed aware of what I was doing and would move before I could get a shot off) before they were spooked off for good by some thick-faced rube who came barreling down the trail from the other direction, driving a pickup truck and wearing blaze orange. In spite of the abrupt ending I took the encounter as a good omen and moved on.

If the Eagles on the way in were a good omen, the volume of cars in the parking lot at the trail head were a bad one. The parking lot looked like.... Well, a parking lot. I was the fourth vehicle, and one person was still in the parking lot, wearing blaze orange and brandishing a shotgun. I chatted with the fellow briefly and it turned out that he would not be camping on the Angleworm but was going to hook up with some adjoining trail. Unless he meant a portage to one of the nearby lakes I wasn't really sure what he meant. I was just happy that he wasn't going to be shooting up the woods I would be sleeping in. After he headed down the trail I changed into my hiking clothing and donned my pack. I gave him a good 15 minute head start before I started down the trail.



The Hike In
My initial thoughts as I walked down the first hundred yards of the trail were, "Wow! I'm finally here!" , "Wow! This is really beautiful!" and "Wow! What is all this crap I am carrying?" It did not take very long at all before I was faced with the contrast between conditioning on an elliptical and hoofing it up a hill with a pack on your back. It also became suddenly so wonderfully clear to me why exactly it makes perfect sense to shell out $200+ for a tent that weighs less than 5 pounds. I took it easy on the way in stopped as needed for breathers. During one of these rest intervals I spotted a cottontail who had frozen, anticipating that I would pass. Unnerved, he made a break for it. If I had the gun with me he would have been dinner. During another stop I was leaning against a boulder when I caught the ever-so-pleasing fragrance of skunk. From behind a tree stump across the trail I could hear the pitter-patter of small feet in the leaves. It may have just been a red squirrel (The area seemed to be the capital of their hostile little empire) but I wasn't going to wait around to find out. I continued.

I had my home made rod tube with me. It was a liability in low-clearance areas, especially around dead falls, just as I suspected it might be. All the way in I kept thinking about those other cars. My original day one plan called for me to march all the way to the northernmost campsite on Angleworm lake. The only catch was that if the campground was taken, I would have had to continue another mile or so to Whiskey Jack lake. By the time I reached the fork for the lake loop I decided to play it safe and make my way up the west side of the lake, where the campsites are more numerous. I finally decided on the second most southern campsite on the west side of Angleworm lake.



Camp
Setting up camp was a breeze. Having the pack off of my back gave me the temporary sensation that I could fly like Peter Pan. The site really was nice, set on a rock ledge about 50 feet up from the lake. I sat down on the ground with my back against a boulder and ate my lunch of salami, sharp cheddar cheese and Ritz crackers. And an apple for dessert. I was assailed by a bold pair of whiskey jacks who tried everything they could think of to get food from me. They were so tame that I'm pretty sure that they would have eaten out of my hand if I had offered. After lunch I busied myself with taking pictures.




I spent part of the afternoon fishing, throwing Clouser Minnows from shore in an attempt to entice any walleyes or Northerns who may have been interested, but in all honesty I was far more content to just sit there and take in the site and sounds of the forest and the lake. I never had a strike and I gave up after I 'bat-hooked' an overhanging branch. In the end I took more pictures.




Dinner was Middle-Eastern. I fried up some falafel in a little olive oil and ate it with pita bread. I enjoyed some Turkish Coffee as an after dinner treat. I grinned to myself as I considered what kind of moron packs a copper kettle miles into the brush just for making coffee when he has a perfectly serviceable plastic press at home.

These mysteries and others I pondered as the sun set behind me and I watched the shadows slowly lengthen over the lake. When the stars came out they were absolutely brilliant. I had chosen my trip to be as close to the new moon as possible so that I would have the best look at the stars and chance to catch the Aurora Borealis. The Aurora let me down but the stars did not. I do not know for how long I gazed at them. I spend my life as a slave to the hands of the clock and for this one night I was most assuredly -- Off the clock. After I hung my food pack I climbed into my tent, changed for bed and crawled into my bag.

Labels: BWCAW, Camping, Coffee, Fall, Fishing, Fly_Fishing, Lakes, Minnesota, Nature, Outside, Photoshop, The_Woods, Trip_Planning, Trip_Reports, Walleyes

I'm no different than the average person in that when it comes to corporate America vs. an entrepreneur, I root for the little guy. With that in mind I try to support local coffee shops whenever I can, be them in my old neighborhood, my old stomping grounds or other places I have haunted.

With that in mind I have made three stops now at a place not far from my house called the Global Cafe. The barista has this whole stoic Scandinavian thing going on. I have no idea if she is the owner, because she doesn't smile, strike up a conversation or even say "Boo" to me, for that matter. The last time I went in there I ordered a mocha, which was given to me unstirred (All the chocolate was stratified at the bottom).

I don't think that I need to explain to my sophisticated readership that an unstirred mocha is the bane of long distance commuters such as me. Unable to resist, I cruise along, drinking the more bitter upper strata. Just as I become accustomed to the flavor (Mentally conditioning myself into thinking that I am merely sucking down a latte or something) - Without warning the mix becomes pure chocolate. It's like what I imagine Augustus Gloop experienced in Charlie and the Chocolate factory when he fell into the chocolate river.

Did I mention that I played Augustus Gloop in a 4th grade adaptation of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? It's hard getting any other roles, once you have played a fat German kid. You're typecast. You're that fat German kid. Good luck trying to convince anyone that you could be The Artful Dodger. I was finished, washed up. My acting career was over at 8 years old.

This morning I tried the Global Cafe for the third time. I pulled up to the drive-through and had to use the conveniently located doorbell to get attention (The parking lot was empty). I again ordered a mocha from the wooden-faced barista. A few minutes later she tried to hand it to me but instead of taking it I asked, "Could you please give it an extra stir for me?" For the first time in three visits the barista displayed an emotional response to my presence. I wish now I could tell if it was shock or disbelief. "I just did stir it!" was her quasi-petulant response. "Yeah, well, last time my drink had all the chocolate at the bottom." (I didn't bother explaining what the concept of an "extra" stir meant) She took my money and disappeared through the window. A few seconds later she popped back out and handed to me my change, my drink ...and a stir stick. A tentative sip confirmed my worst fears: stratified.

:::Sigh:::

Labels: Coffee

Mabuhay ang Goldilocks!

Labels: Coffee, Food_and_Recipes, Moleskine, Tagalog

OK, credit where credit is due:

Caribou backs off fight over local coffee shop

Caribou agreed to waive their exclusivity clause, which would allow Limu Coffee to stay at Silver Lake Road and 39th Avenue NE in Mineapolis. However, apparently the new lease she has been offered will double her rent. So it remains to be seen if Limu will stay in the same place or be moving.

I'm glad that Caribou got a clue. I retract my earlier statement about the CEO being a slimeball. :-) I hope that Limu coffee is able to work something out with their landlord to keep it's doors open at the same location.

Labels: Coffee

Coffee brouhaha leaves owner miffed

Limu Coffee, a five-year-old shop on Silver Lake Road in St. Anthony is being forced out of it's place of business because the property owner is refusing to renew the shop's lease at the Silver Lake Road Shopping Center. The shop is owned by a woman named Gedam Azeze, who came to the U.S. from Ethiopia in 1989.

Caribou Coffee, which opened a new outlet in May in the nearby Silver Lake Village Shopping Center, negotiated a lease that prohibits other coffee shops at the development.

I have drank at both coffee houses and as a self-described "Hardcore" coffee drinker I personally preferred the coffee served at Caribou. As a consumer I could live with the thought that the independent shop could bite the dust because I preferred the big company's product - To me that is fair competition, even if the indie is at a disadvantage in terms of branding & marketing. But I am sickened to think of how many of my purchasing dollars over the years have gone toward a company that engages in corporate sleaziness at such a level as to eliminate their competition without actually competing with them. The owners of the shopping center wanted this highly recognized chain in their center so that they could pull more people off of Silver Lake Road and they were willing to sign anything to get them. Than my friends, is the insidious power of branding.

Caribou CEO Michael Coles said that the decision to decline Azeze's lease renewal request "had nothing to do with us. If the landlord wanted to keep the tenant, it should not have granted us the exclusive, and we'd still have gone there."

Then why don't you just negate the clause from your lease and let the independent stay, you slimeball?

Over the last couple of years I have turned to making my own espresso drinks. With a little milk-frothing practice I have reached the level where I can say that I prefer my own drinks to anything that I can buy at a shop. Shop-bought coffee has become more or less a once-a-month treat that I will get at a mall or when I am running early for work. But this story has irritated me to the point where I am ready to finally say "no more" to Caribou. Or to Starbucks, for that matter. From now on the only coffee shops I will patronize will be independents.

Am I a activist? No, not even close. I am just a consumer who from now on is voting with his feet.

Labels: Coffee, The_News

Observation:
A Terry-boo(tm) iced coffee is not as good as Starbucks when it is made with Folgers...

Reality:
I am continuing in my low-budget endeavor by taking lunch at my desk. I didn't write a blessed thing yesterday but rather spent my lunch hour surfing, which is something tht I don't do when I am at Starbucks. I did find a new BWCA-related web log called the dharma blog. Add to that Lileks, Seth Godin, Slashdot and the Register, and you pretty much have my reading list. I do skim the top headlines at CNN and get my local news from the Strib. For pinoy headlines I use INQ7.

I like the dharma blog because A) the author seems to be on a similar wavelength in terms of what we appreciate about the outdoors, and B) He's got a lot of back material for me to read. Since the early stages of parenthood have limited my ability to get out to the woods, his writing is a good fix for what I'm jonesing for.

On a related note I think that this will be the weekend that I set up the tent in the back yard and start broadening the child's horizons. Also, I need to set a date with the guys for our all-day fishing trip (Maybe either 7/2 or 7/9). For long term, I need to set in motion the plan for acquiring a canoe. It looks to me like the only way I'll be able to swing it is if I liquidate the truck and get a beater (Not that the truck isn't much more than a year or two away from being a beater now). The canoe that I have my eye on? It's right here.

OK, this has turned into a to-do list instead of a posting. I will write more soon.

Labels: Coffee, Web_Site