"The quest for coffee on the road is a futile one, yet try it we must."

- the Espresso Drinker's Guide to the Galaxy

Our cross-country journey began without fanfare, in a Starbucks in Sacramento. When you're anywhere outside of the Bay Area or Seattle, your safest bet is the Mermaid. Sure, the coffee's mediocre, but it beats trying to swallow the watery, bitter, scalding, overextracted hellbrew some little out of the way mom and pop place serves, poured by some pimply, angry teenager who makes maybe two beverages an hour on their grungy looking one group espresso machine. Yep. Stick with the Mickey D's of espresso. In this case, as you can see, the counter help was really sweet. This stop was the best Starbucks experience I have ever had. And it goes to show how important good customer service is. Too bad I never learned that at Rulli's. (I was once a barista there)

Coffee: 6
Atmosphere: 9

Ratings on scale from 1 - 10

At least as far as being on the interstate goes, Nevada is all about casinos. And if you're on the long road East (or West for that matter) a must for the traveller is a slice of pie and some of that good old milky truck stop coffee.

This little gem of a place was in Winnemucca.

Coffee: 4
Atmosphere: 6

Day three finds us on the great American Prairie, at a quintessentially American truckstop called, appropriately, "Little America". It is located somewhere in Wyoming, one of the square states, also known as "flyover" states. I think I now know the sentiment behind the lyrics to an old American folksong -- "Oh bury me not . . . . on the lone prairie . . . "

Coffee: 3
Atmosphere: 5 ish

In front of a really classy joint somewhere else on the prairie. You know, that old prairie is really big. I simply do not know how the pioneers kept going, other than being motivated by a desire for a change of scenery. And being hotly pursued by the Sioux. And then they still had all those casinos in Nevada to contend with.

By the way, I'm holding a Starbucks Frappuccino. The kind you get from the beverage case in roadside convenience stores.

By the other way, I wear white shirts all the time out in the merciless sun of our Great American Desert - I burn easily . . . and yes, I did change the shirt . . . well, once anyway.

Coffee: N/A
Atmosphere: ?

Still in Wyoming. Damn. Cheyenne. Another Best Western. And I don't mean Gunsmoke or Bonanza.

Sometimes the only coffee around is the stuff you make yourself. I gotta tell ya, we took our freaking coffee maker in the car, along with a pound o' Peet's, and plugged that sucker into the same outlet as the motel's little Senor Coffee with the featherweight pouches of Casa de Maxwell and the envelopes of powdered cream. You do not mess with me in the AM regarding El Cafe. Capiche?

Coffee: 9.5
Atmosphere: 0

Day four, we are lost in Nebraska. Lost, I should say, in the stupendous beauty of the State everyone loves to make fun of. I just love how the flag is fluttering patriotically above me in this shot. Annie has a real eye for these details.

Coffee:1
Atmosphere: 2

Caught me in a Starbucks again. In Lincoln NE. Abe would not be happy that of all the cities in the Midwest, they chose this one to name after him.

This is the morning of day five. Hang in there. Trust me, it took us a little longer to cross the USA than it will for you to read this webpage. Unless you read like me.

Notice change of shirt. Or not. You know fashion is not my forte. Espresso is. This one sucked.

Coffee: 3
Atmosphere: 2

I-O-WAY. Don't dis Iowa. It's beautiful. Green, rolling. And corn and soybeans for the next four states. And a guy there told me most of the beans get sold to Argentina.

It starts to get humid and lush from Iowa onward. I love it. I was sick of the long, dry, brown summers of the West. If I had to live in the "heartland", I would choose Iowa in a "heartbeat".

No, your eyes are not deceiving you. Robert the Espresso Nazi is drinking espresso from a vending machine at a roadside rest stop. I even learned how to make a "ristretto" . . . I yanked the cup away before the machine had time to dispense all 7 ounces of scalding water through the pitiful grounds. On the control panel it describes "Espresso" as "a very strong coffee". ahhhhYuh.

Coffee: Ha ha ha ha!

Atmosphere: Hee hee hee hee!

This is in Jamestown, NY. Some dude opens a place called Kaldi, (which is the name of the legendary goatherd of Yemen, whose goats ate coffee berries and got really giddy and then old Kaldi eats some and says "Wow, I just discovered how millions of Americans will feel every morning after their first cuppa Joe" and scrambles to get the patent rights on this stuff before Monsanto does) and thinks he's God's gift to western New York state. I'm tellin' ya, this was the worst coffee we found on the entire trip. Annie took one sip and just dropped the whole cup, cream, sugar and all, right into the trash can. I tried to drink some, 'cause I needed the caffeine, but ended up pouring mine into a planter by the street.

Coffee: 0
Atmosphere: "Hey, my customers love it"
Yeah. all 7 of them.

Calling the movers. Our stuff is where?

This was our last coffee stop, around Binghamton, NY. That day we booked it from Erie, PA all the way to our new home in northern Vermont. Around Albany, the great power outage of 2003 occured. Even out in rural NY state the traffic was a mess, because stop lights were out and the usually very polite citizens of New York were jostling for position at every intersection.

But by 10:00 that night, we were in our piece of heaven. 3200 miles. Sore butt. Tried to sleep, but too wired on all that bad brew. It was worth it, though. Someday you have to see this place. Who knows? Maybe you'll make the drive someday to find a little farm in the East, before the prices go up. And they start building Starbucks' in the cornfields.

Coffee: "Whaddyanuts?"
Atmosphere: "Yougottaprollemwiddat?"