I’d walk 1.4 miles (and back) for Philz Coffee

Today is sup­posed to be a rest day for me, and I woke up with con­sid­er­able sore­ness in my calves. I want­ed an excuse to get out and just walk some­where and not have to run. I thought about anoth­er trip over to Sun­dance on Third Street for a cup of cof­fee, but then it occurred to me that it’s not much far­ther to go to Philz. That set­tled it for me.

For the first time I was held up by trains pass­ing where I’d have to cross the tracks. Until today I’d always been lucky to hear the bells clang only after I’d crossed. When the gate came down I looked both ways and saw a train com­ing from each direc­tion. That was anoth­er first for me. I thought that they would pass one anoth­er, but the South­bound train stopped to let the North­bound train pass. Because of this, the gates lift­ed long enough for me to cross legal­ly and get just a few feet away before the bells sound­ed again and the gate closed. The South­bound Cal­Train went by and I con­tin­ued on my way.

I found myself think­ing about liv­ing on a house­boat as I passed by the house­boats on the South side of Mis­sion Creek. It’s a great loca­tion, and some of the boats berthed there are yachts rather than house­boats. I guess part of the appeal of liv­ing on a house­boat in my mind would be the abil­i­ty to move with­out mov­ing, and that’s not real­ly fea­si­ble with a house­boat. But would­n’t it be cool to live on a yacht? It would­n’t take a very large boat to pro­vide more space than a stu­dio apart­ment. The cats could get the fresh out­door air and nap in direct sun­light with­out me wor­ry­ing that they would stray too far or get hit by a car

I looked into it a few years back, and it could be an eco­nom­i­cal option, at least com­pared to oth­er options in the City. The only prob­lem is that most mari­nas here have reg­u­la­tions about stay­ing overnight to dis­cour­age peo­ple from liv­ing at the mari­na. There are also long wait­ing lists to get an open berth. I’m sure the berths down at Mis­sion Bay are the same though I’ve nev­er checked that out.

I dis­cov­ered when I arrived at Philz that Philz at least at the Fourth Street loca­tion sells the Wall Street Jour­nal along with the Chron­i­cle. As it’s my news­pa­per of choice and not offered for sale at the Star­bucks here in my neigh­bor­hood, I’m think­ing that this may not be the last time I make a trip to Philz for morn­ing cof­fee. I was also tempt­ed by Philz’ enor­mous trav­el mug which not only holds more cof­fee than a large, those extra-large fills are charged at the price of a small. The mugs are six­teen dol­lars so I did­n’t buy one today, but there might be one in my future, espe­cial­ly if they will do a bet­ter job of keep­ing my Phil­har­mon­ic hot over the walk home than a paper cup and plas­tic lid does.

My one con­cern is that I may be tempt­ed too often to walk instead of going for a run because of the reward of the awe­some coffee.