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.
