A Little Tour of Little Free Libraries

This map shows the Little Free Libraries within five miles of my home in Eugene. There are a bunch of them and this afternoon I went for a short bike ride to visit a few of the ones closest to me.

Partway through my journey, it started raining. I took shelter from the heaviest rain under a tree.

Some of the libraries are free-form exchanges and others, like this one in the Friendly Street Park, are more closely curated.

On this trip I visited seven of the little libraries and I managed to not acquire any books but I did donate a couple. It's a constant struggle for shelf space at our place.

Coffeeneuring with Christine: 2015 Summary

Christine and I completed the 2015 Coffeeneuring Challenge in our new home town of Eugene, Oregon. We found many fine places to coffeeneur and have many more yet to discover. For the record, here are our seven 2015 coffeeneuring rides.

1) Saturday October 3, 2015 - Sweet Life Patisserie - 3 miles

2) Saturday October 10, 2015 - Vero - 2.8 miles

3) Sunday October 11, 2015 - New Day Bakery and World Cafe - 2.2 miles

4) Saturday October 17, 2015 - Alton Baker Park -  7.4 miles

5) Sunday October 18, 2015 - Bagel Sphere - 2.4 miles

6) Saturday October 24, 2015 - The Glenwood Restaurant - 3.6 miles

7) Sunday November 1, 2015 - Noisette Pastry Kitchen - 2.3 miles

Each of the above entries link to the blog entry for that day with lots of pictures of the rides and the food and the beverages. Some of these places are so close to our home that we had to ride a bit extra to make sure we met the minimum 2 mile trip distance for each coffeeneuring trip. Eugene is certainly rich in coffeeneuring destinations!

Coffeeneuring with Christine: Noisette Pastry Kitchen

It was a damp morning in Eugene, but that did not deter us from our coffeeneuring ride.

We rolled down Broadway. In our neighborhood, Broadway is a quiet, bike-friendly street.

Our destination isn't far from home.

It's Noisette Pastry Kitchen, a bakery that Christine has been wanting to check out.

Christine good-naturedly puts up with my "we've got to take pictures of the food and drink" thing.

I had a wonderful goat-cheese biscuit and a slice of coffee cake. Christine had a savory brioche. We both had Earl Grey tea. It poured rain while we were eating, but it was only lightly drizzling by the time we headed out.

Noisette is only 0.9 miles from our home, so we went slighly further downtown to add a bit of mileage to make sure our total trip was long enough to meet the coffeeneuring distance rule.

We turned south at Kesey Plaza.

We rode through the little inter-building tunnel that connects 12th Avenue for bike traffic.

12th Avenue is another street that is optimized for bike travel. Most of the car traffic sticks to the faster one-ways of 11th or 13th.

The trees are quite beautiful this time of year.

We turn on Tyler Street.

The tree in our front yard is a deep red this time of year.

Here we are at home. This is our seventh coffeeneuring ride this year, so we've completed the 2015 challenge with a couple of weeks to spare. I'll tally up the miles, consolidate the reports and submit the paperwork to Coffeeneuring HQ back in DC.

We've had a lot of fun and found a bunch of great places for food and drink. Coffeeneuring is a great way to get to know a place.

Keep 'em rolling.