R and J in the USA

While Julie worked away in the van, Ryan found a table just inside the door of a clean, stylish coffee shop in downtown Greensboro, North Carolina, called Northern Roots Coffeehouse. Upon walking in, Julie was immediately taken in by the open concept, the clean lines, and the sleek design of the space. When she saw the window sill nook that had a breakfast-in-bed style lap desk to accompany pillows and a place to stretch out her legs, she knew she would be happy there.

The happiness was made much brighter when Julie was welcomed at the register by a jovial man. Glenn was not just there to take an order, but was immediately interested to spread good cheer and make everyone who walked in feel right at home. Before long, deciding what to order turned into a conversation about our trip, and Glenn was all about it! Julie and Glenn got so into chatting about the trip, and Glenn’s enthusiasm was so bubbling over, that every few minutes Julie needed to stand aside and pause the conversation when other customers came up to place an order.

Glenn’s wife, the owner of the shop, was originally from Cleveland, where Julie was born, and Glenn hailed from New Hampshire. This made the name of the coffee shop, Northern Roots, feel even more apt than we expected when we walked in. 

Usually, when we have a people along the way post, we record quotes from the conversation. These are often from memory, sometimes a day or even four days after it happened. Sometimes we do a good job of sitting down and recording notes after an interaction to make sure to include them in a later write up. Oftentimes, we just remember. With Glenn, the conversation flowed so bountifully, smoothly, and enthusiastically from one topic to the other that when we sat down to write about it, there was too much to recount in detail. We found the most noteworthy feature of our conversation with Glenn was the feeling we had while in it. We felt a sense of being right at home, like chatting with an old friend we simply hadn’t seen in a while. 

A highlight of our chat with Glenn was when he came up to us a bit later and said, “Do I get a people along the way?!” He asked the question with what we had quickly come to know was his characteristic enthusiasm and big ole grin. 

It turns out, in the short time since chatting that it took Julie to sit down with her hot chocolate and get to writing, Glenn had already signed up for the blog and checked it out.

“Absolutely!” We replied. We had already been planning on it, but now it was a must. 

Glenn made it easy on us. At the beginning of the trip, we would feel a bit awkward interjecting into whatever lovely conversation we were having to ask someone if they would be okay with us writing about them for our blog. We eventually got to feeling pretty smooth about it, but it always feels like a bit of a thing. And then, even more so, asking if it was okay to take their photo. Some moments, it just doesn’t seem to fit the flow to do so, so we either don’t ask, or skip the write-up all together. Well, Glenn, eliminated all of that for us and made it as easy as can be. 

After we assured him we would write a people along the way post about him, he then followed up with, “Where should we do it?”

”What?” We asked.

”The picture!”

What more could we ask for?! The drinks were great, the space was beautiful, and the atmosphere was fantastic. It’s the Glenns of this world that make any place you happen to be, feel like home.