Inside the Interzone

On the fourth day of my journey to the GSA meeting, I made my way to Portland from Eugene via some non-interstate roads that took me through Corvalis, home of The Interzone, Lockwood's favorite coffee shop.
I went inside and met that coffee shop denizen, the geological, political, satirical blogger at Outside the Interzone.

It's a colorful place, bustling with activity. Students and others come and go, and people hang around writing, studying, blogging, and what have you.

Bicycles are everywhere outside, which is a good thing, because if you don't happen to have a university parking sticker, you are unlikely to find a nearby parking space that lasts longer than an hour (or was it two?). I didn't want to feed the meter, because the meter maid was out in full force, looking for people with California plates anyone overstaying their welcome. I parked in three different parking places, the last one being several blocks away.

But don't let that stop you from dropping in: the coffee is good, the company is excellent!
Lockwood was a great host. He immediately bought me an Americano with room for cream, then we both sat at his table with our respective laptops plugged in and open, looked at routes to Portland on Google Maps, chatted, got over-coffeed (I did, anyway), read some blogs, and chatted. As I was leaving, Lockwood gave me a specimen of natrolite in calcite, which I was duly instructed to give to Callan Bentley of NOVA Geoblog when I got to the geoblogger meetup in Portland Monday night (photo here). Mission accomplished!
Yes, I really was there, on the inside, looking outside at the Interzone sign.