Coffee

Hammond, LA – Day 10: Hipster Coffee

Metal Lizard

Another jam-packed day of chill. Slept in late, followed immediately by my usual cereal and banana breakfast, then a trip to the grocery store for sandwich fixings for Sally and I for the week, then a stop at a coffee shop (more on this below) on the way home for me. We were going to go to Subway to to buy a couple three footlongs to feed son Stuart and family when they arrived, but we just didn’t feel like going out again, so they got a meal of most of our sandwich fixings. Now Sally and I will have to go back to the store for ourselves later…

After lunch with us, the 4 of them and Sally and I piled in two different cars to drive the couple miles to see GG, AKA Adele. I’m not sure of the spelling of GG, it might have two i’s in it, but quite possibly no one else does either. There, we adults chatted while the kids played with some toys and the cat for the afternoon.

 
There is a NOLA local coffee chain called PJ’s and there are two in Hammond. Back in January I could walk to the one in downtown from the Airbnb we stayed at then, and I did probably every day. Yesterday I drove to the other PJ’s that is closer to this Airbnb because 2 miles one way is a bit far for a morning walk. Today because of my loll in bed instead of popping up, the morning caramel latte had to wait.

Coming back from shopping I thought I’d try another downtown place that was on the way back to HQ. I Googled my way to a spot downtown called Luma Coffee which has a 4.8-star rating. I was directed to the place, but I stopped around the corner to walk over because of the one-way streets. Trouble is when I turned the corner and started looking for a coffee shop I didn’t see it. There a couple empty storefronts and a lot of professional building places. Perplexed, I headed back to the car to tell Sally I couldn’t find it. She pointed kitty cornered across the street and all I saw was a Rexall Drug Store.

It was a Rexall Drug Store in a previous life, but now it housed a coffee shop that had left the original signage up and just had the storefront glass etched with its name. A very hipster thing to do. And the hipster thing was exceedingly apt as inside it had that vibe in spades. I could have been back in Portland, Oregon except no one had a beanie on. And it was a very popular place on a Sunday mid-morning with only 2 people working. I probably could have walked the 4 blocks one way to PJ’s and back before I got my order there.

Also, the 8oz latte cost about as much as the 16oz one back at Stomping Grounds which tasted a lot better than what they were serving up here. If I lived in this town I would have a different go to for my fancy coffee drink.

A Good Walk Spoiled

Turns out my favorite coffee shop is a mile and a half away. Because today was a nice day I decided to walk there and get a 16oz Salted Caramel Latte and walk back.

There are two ways to get to Stomping Grounds coffee shop and each is roughly the same length because it is on one side of a rectangle and home is on the opposite side. Probably will not do that again, it was not a lot of fun, all four sides of the rectangle are busy roads.

Donna and I used to walk to our favorite coffee shop in Klamath Falls, Brevada, and it too was a mile and a half away. The difference was that we had three different routes between our home and coffee. Two of the routes were very quiet, one was mostly on a multi use trail and the other involved quiet residential streets and a short trail. Only one was via a busy road and it was no where near Portland Metro busy.

Good Thing You Make K-Cups Dunkin

Back in Aiken I got addicted to Dunkin Donuts coffee. There were actually two in town and we would alternate going to one or the other for breakfasts a couple times a week. We invested in a Keurig and I bought K-cups and the Dunkin creamer/sweetener so I could enjoy a Dunkin coffee every dang day. So when we moved to Oregon, where there isn’t even one store, it really wasn’t a hardship because of the K-cup creamer combo. But every time we travel I always keep my eye open for a store to get a coffee made by someone else.

For this trip to Mississippi and back I checked for stores in every overnight town with plans to get a good ol’ medium hot Dunkin decaf with regular cream and sugar (regular in Dunkin speak means 3 sugars and 3 creamers.) My first chance came in Hobbs, NM and I can’t for the life of me remember why I didn’t go to it. Hey, I’m old and it was 2 weeks ago so if I didn’t write about it here it didn’t happen.

My first real Dunkin experience was 3 days ago in Killeen, TX. There was one just 4 miles from the hotel so Donna sent me on a trip to go get my coffee while she finished packing up all our crap. I rolled thru the drive in and got my usual order. Stopped and filled up the car with gas and when I got back to the hotel I took my first sip. They obviously didn’t understand the Dunkin phrase “regular” because it tasted like just 1 cream and 1 sugar. At the breakfast area in the hotel I added a couple of sugar packets, but couldn’t totally fix it because all they had was hazelnut cream.

Our next stop with a Dunkin was Odessa, Texas. We tried the same trick as last time in Killeen, I went off on my own with the Google Maps lady directing me. This one was a lot further than Killeen, but the route looked pretty simple, go 3 miles on the I-20 service road, turn right onto TX388 Loop, go three miles turn right off the loop, a quick left and then another quick left. When I took that second left I knew something was wrong because I was in an industrial area. When little Miss Google said you have reached your destination I was in a gravel lot of a small gray warehouse with absolutely no signage.

So I gave up and started back to the hotel. I couldn’t make a left to get back on the Loop, so I turned right and merged back on heading a 1/2 mile up to the next exit. The one really nice thing Texas has in these situations is a dedicated U-turn lane that doesn’t make you sit through several traffic lights to go right back in the opposite direction. I zipped around the U-turn lane and as I got pointed back towards the hotel on the entrance ramp what did I see in my rearview mirror but a big Pilot Truck Stop sign and a Dunkin sign right below it! At this point I was so frustrated that I watched those signs shrink in the distance as I kept going back to the hotel.

Leaving Odessa we were heading due north along US385 and as it turned out there was another Dunkin in the next town, Andrews just 30 miles away. It too was in a Pilot Truck Stop so as got to where it was located I pulled in and went inside and there wasn’t anything Dunkin related at all. When I walked outside all sad like, I notice that I had just gone into a Love’s Truck Stop. Doh! The Pilot was across the street. Donna suggested we walk, but I poo-poo’d it because of the 18-wheeled truck traffic we’d need to dodge. When I went inside Pilot the Dunkin was just a self-serve area with a couple large urns, a small cabinet with a few doughnuts and an extremely messy condiment area. I made a medium (not decaf) with what might have been creamer and some liquid sugar. It was OK, but barely worth the effort.

The next Dunkin was in Clovis, New Mexico and instead of waiting until morning Donna, suggested I get one when we arrived in town. Turns out it too was in a Pilot Truck Stop and because of that, I didn’t even think of trying it because our next stop was Santa Fe and I know they have a real store that I have been to on previous visits.

One Last Insulated Mug Post

The Pluses:

  1. I don’t have to wait near as long until the temperature is drinkable compared to the metal insulated mug.
  2. It tastes great, maybe even better than from a ceramic mug.
  3. It holds the temperature longer than the ceramic mug.
  4. It looks cool as hell with the powdered latte mix from Maxwell.

The Minuses:

  1. It feels really delicate, like little tap and it will shatter into a million pieces.
  2. I miss the heft of the ceramic mug.
  3. The temperature doesn’t stay warm that much longer.