Three Iced Decafs and a Brand New Notebook

I hiked around Center City taking pictures today.

I first walked from the PATCO station at 9th and Locust down to 4th and South for an iced decaf coffee from Milk and Honey. There are a lot of coffee shops in that area, and most of them are good, but that's the one I tend to gravitate toward.

Coffee in hand, I meandered my way up to 18th and Walnut to check out the Rittenhouse Square Fine Art Show. I didn't see much that interested me, though the work was generally pretty good. It's hard for me to appreciate painting in that kind of environment. There are too many people, too many pictures, and too much noise. After a couple laps around the fair, I crossed the street to Barnes and Noble.

I was looking for a dot grid Moleskine notebook, but I didn't feel like paying the $20 Barnes and Noble were asking for them. Well, also, and perhaps mostly, I didn't like the colors they had available. Empty handed, I walked to The Last Drop at 13th and Pine for another coffee. All hopped up on decaf, and still in want of a notebook, I wandered down to the little art store on 3rd and Market.

Arts and Craftsman is by far my favorite art store in the city, except for when it comes to brushes. I absolutely hate the line of brushes they carry. I've disliked Princeton Art and Brush Co. brushes since at least 1994. Every few years I give them another go and always regret it. I wasn't looking for brushes anyway. I was looking for a notebook, and I found one.

I settled on a standard grid notebook by a company out of Detroit called Shinola. They're made in America with paper "sourced from sustainably managed forests", which is definitely nice to see, but the quality isn't as good as the slightly more expensive Moleskine's notebooks. Moleskine's notebooks aren't nearly as nice as the even more expensive and difficult to find Leuchtturm1917's notebooks. I think I'll be sticking with the dotted Leuchtturm1917 notebooks in the future. They truly are superior in all regards.

American-made gridded notebook in hand, I walked back to the PATCO station at 9th, half-heartedly intending to go on home. I thought better of the plan and reversed course back to 4th for another iced decaf. I didn't really want another drink, necessarily. I felt like I hadn't taken enough worthwhile photos yet, and another coffee run provided an excuse to walk around a bit longer. I did in fact get a few more worthwhile shots in along the way, so that idea worked out well.

All of the iced decafs this day were delicious, but I must cut back. Coffee shops are expensive and my feet hurt.