Coffeeneuring Ride #5: Benning (Dorothy I. Height) Library (3935 Benning Road, N.E.) and Mason Dixie Biscuit Co. (2301 Bladensburg Rd., N.E.)

Saturday, Oct. 21; 17.4 miles

Arnold Palmer (iced tea & lemonade), biscuit

The Benning (Dorothy Height) Library opened in 2010 and was designed by the same firm that did the Shaw Library. It’s dedicated to Dorothy Height, a civil rights and women’s rights activist who headed up the National Council of Negro Women for 40 years and who spent the latter years of her life in D.C. (Interestingly, this is at least the fourth building in D.C. named in her honor. The others I’m aware of include a post office, an elementary school, and the NCNW headquarters.)

It’s an airy space, designed with a lot of copper on the outside to capture the afternoon sun and beautiful murals on the inside. The ones that line the kids’ section were done by the local artist coalition/nonprofit Life Pieces to Masterpieces. (more…)

I forgot to take photos of the Georgetown Library interior when I was there on this day, so the indoor shots are all from a month later.

Coffeeneuring Ride #2: Georgetown Neighborhood Library (3260 R St., N.W.) and Boulangerie Christophe (1422 Wisconsin Ave., N.W.)

Sunday, Oct. 15; 3.5 miles

Tea, chocolate chip Viennoise

The Georgetown Neighborhood Library has been my regular library for the past couple years, when the West End branch closed for renovations. I usually stop by once a week or so and then often head down to the waterfront to read for a while.

The building was opened in 1935 and used to be a much darker place. (I wrote a paper on Siddhartha there when I was a senior in high school visiting my dad, who was working in D.C. at that time.) But it had a fire in 2007 (coincidentally the same day Eastern Market suffered a similarly devastating fire) and was rebuilt at that time, reopening in 2010.

The building sits atop a crest of Wisconsin Avenue, giving it lovely views of the surrounding area. The park behind the library gives the neighborhood its name, Book Hill, and usually is the first place I see spring bulbs forming. (more…)

There are nine books to write about for June, so I’m going with the easier option of a Coffeeneuring ride, especially since Rudi posted those photos for me.

Coffeeneuring Ride #3: Shop Made in DC (1330 19th St., N.W.) and Shaw (Watha T. Daniels) Library (1630 7th St., N.W.)

Saturday, Oct. 21; 4.7 miles

Hot chocolate, cardamom kouign amann

If you’re going to talk about the revitalization of D.C.’s branch libraries, it’s impossible to have that discussion without highlighting the one in the Shaw neighborhood. This happens to be my current secondary library branch, the one I’m most easily able to get to on my way home from work. (more…)

No, in case you were paying attention, you did not miss posts on rides #2 or #3. Because ride #2 was to my regular library, I didn’t think to take photos inside, so I want to go back and get some to show it off properly. And I had a good portion of the post for ride #3 done when I realized that I wanted to include shots that are on Rudi’s phone (and he’s sleeping).

So, we’re skipping ahead to ride #4:

Coffeeneuring Ride #4: A Baked Joint (440 K St., N.W.) and Rosedale Library (1701 Gales St., N.E.)

Saturday, Oct. 28; 11.63 miles

Hot chocolate, brownie-chocolate chip cookie bar (more…)

Every fall, M.G. hosts a Coffeeneuring challenge in which participants ride their bicycles to someplace and drink coffee or another similar beverage. This is my fifth year taking part and I decided to put more thought into the option to a theme within a theme than I did last year, when my plan to finish knitting projects and books during the event scaled down to knitting and reading.

So, I opted to make this year’s theme within a theme visiting some of D.C.’s 25 branch libraries. Some of these libraries are ones I’ve been to before, while others are entirely new to me.

Coffeeneuring Ride #1: Sugar Shack Doughnuts (1932 9th St N.W.) and Northwest One (155 L St. NW)

Saturday, Oct. 14; 5.7 miles

Hot chocolate, doughnuts (sprinkled and Butterfinger) (more…)

Coffeeneuring #9: Sugar Shack Donuts (804 N. Henry St., Alexandria, VA)

Saturday, Nov. 19; 12.1 miles
Apple cake doughnut and caramel apple cider

I’d planned to get up and moving earlier than I did on Saturday, which meant that when I did finally walk out the door, dressed for the early afternoon’s sun and temperatures, that I was in for a surprise within minutes. We live below ground, which means that our view of the sky is rather a small one and can give false impressions, as it did then. Only half the sky was still blue when I emerged on the street and by the time I pedaled down to the river and across the Potomac, barely a sliver remained free of clouds. The wind picked up, which did not make the ride an enjoyable one. The gusts were particularly bad near the airport, where a lack of ground cover gave the wind a running start. By the time I reached the edge of Old Town, I was glad to encounter a bus shelter where I could seek refuge while checking my directions and putting on the measly warm layers I’d brought with me.

I stopped in at Fibre Space (nothing on their side of the street to lock the bike to) for a while to see if they had something in stock, but they were out, so I continued on to my destination: Sugar Shack Donuts (bike racks right out front). I’d bought a Groupon for a half dozen doughnuts earlier in the season, imagining Rudi and I would have more opportunities to ride together, but his unavailability wasn’t going to stop me from visiting. The selection was diminished, but there were enough to put together a box to bring home with me. I added their drink of the day, a hot caramel apple cider, and parked myself at a table in the back of the shop. This marked my only Coffeeneur stop that necessitated sitting indoors, but the waning daylight and impending rain and plummeting temperatures did not make me think that I needed to make myself miserable in order to be consistent.

Knowing that rain was possible, I’d packed a slender personal collection of comics, Young Avengers, Vol. 1: Style > Substance, rather than a library book that might be ruined by the weather, and my Christmas mitts. I read my book and started working on a thumb and ate my very tasty apple doughnut and nursed my cider. I texted Rudi to say I’d decided to catch Metro back to the District, rather than ride back in dim, damp, blustery conditions. This wise decision was reinforced when I emerged from the shop to discover that the rain had indeed begun and that my main headlight was dead. I got off at GW and pedaled home from there, being extra-cautious since I was down to my tadpole light in front.

I’d planned to go out one more time, on Sunday, but it was such a miserably windy day that I made the executive decision to make Saturday’s my final Coffeeneuring stop of the season.

So, with that, over my nine rides over seven weeks, I covered 63.2 miles, just shy of my personal Coffeeneuring best from two years ago.

My theme was reading and knitting. I’d hoped it’d be finished objects, but not a single knit item was completed, although I did get closer on the eight projects I worked on. Of the nine books I was reading at my stops, I had better luck, finishing six of them so far. (Not Your Sidekick, Magic in Manhattan, and The Girl Who Drank the Moon are all still in progress.)

Thanks, once again, to MG for hosting such a fun event!

The rest of this year’s rides: 1-4, 5, and 6-8.