Solitude

There's nothing like a good ol' fashioned road trip folks. Lucky for me, the business side of my life had me driving to Connecticut for a little fun in the sun this week. Okay, so "the sun" refers to temperatures typically only 10 degrees warmer than in Upstate, NY - in this case making it a balmy 34 degrees here in Hartford today. But still, there are benefits to this little mid-week excursion... Namely, an opportunity to meet up with my good friend Sebastian - my cycling buddy from back when I used to call this place my own playground - to get some good road riding in together. Work and play in one trip. Beautiful.

So this afternoon I loaded up The Clunker into the back of my car, tossed in a duffel bag holding approximately 15 pounds of training clothes and one dress shirt, and made my way over to the big C for my 36 hour tour. With a mighty tailwind, I found myself arriving in Hartford early - and when presented with some free time between business-related appointments, what's an average Joe like me gonna do? You guessed it: nothing better in my opinion then to immediately hunt for a Starbucks and search for that old familiar fix before getting on with the day. With around about an hour to kill, I began to scour the city in search of that glowing green and white banner of hope. My sweet two-tailed Siren, not warning me of the rocks that may lay ahead, but calling me closer with her melodic symphony. Driving, driving, driving... Surely there's one here... Driving, driving, driving... There's not a single respectable city in the world without a Starbucks! Yet sure enough, with every right hand turn, at every round-about and in every single direction I looked, there were only... Sigh... Dunkin' Donuts!

What kind of name is that anyways? I mean, "Dunkin'"? We can't say "Dunking"? Are we trying to save money on that extra neon "G"?

Growl. Apparently I've been gone from Connecticut too long and have forgotten that the Double D rules the roost here. But, as most of you know by now, I'm not one to give up very easily. Up and down the city streets I traveled... Free time was running short. The snow clouds began to threaten just as the sun was starting to go down. Lights from oncoming traffic at every block made my search even more difficult as twilight descended. But, suddenly, it happened. The slightest trace of an aroma from that oily black-bean goodness came in via my car's ventilation system and registered in my highly acute and Arabica-tuned olfactory system. The synapses fired... The muscles contracted... My pupils focused. I looked left, I turned right. Bam! Located and locked on, with nary a need to even find a parking spot before dashing in to nab my bounty. I just left the car there, double-parked.

And they say you can't buy happiness. Mine only cost me $1.88 (plus the 25 dollars in gas I probably went through touring the nooks and crannies of Middle-Earth Hartford).

Any... Ways. With all the excitement I felt an extreme urgency to get to where I was going on the double. But as is the usual case, even when I'm running late I end up getting to where I'm going early. Occupational hazard, I suppose, when you're OCD. And so with some time to kill (still), I made myself my little mobile nest, complete with coffee, music and computer, all set to go through email and type up this blog entry before my appointment.

Looooong Sip. Yup. Gotta love the road trips.