Note that this logs entries were not written as the events occurred. Not having a laptop, I took notes and then composed the entries later, in bunches of days, even a week, at a time.


September 19

Just when I thought I would have a chance to relax and work on my web site (which I'd been doing for almost two weeks), I got a call from a frienuutd who won an auction for a car... in Wisconsin! She tried to find a cheap one-way flight on priceline.com, but failed on her first attempt, and then submitted a second request and then remembered that she knew somebody that loves road trips... ME!!! Fortunately for me, her second bid was rejected, and so the game was on. She would pay for gas and food, and we would drive straight through to Wisconsin, with as many new Starbucks stops as time permitted before she had to meet this guy in Algoma, WI.

However, she did catch me off-guard, and unprepared, and she wanted to leave as soon as possible so she could return as soon as possible. Before leaving, I definitely needed to update my list of stores to visit, at a minimum on the states I thought I might hit on this trip. Printing some maps would have been nice, too. But I had plans to meet a girl from HotOrNot.com, and I had been trying to get ahold of her with no success for an hour and a half. And then a friend calls up and wants to meet at Starbucks. Michelle, the car girl/trip sponsor, was going to dinner with a friend, so I went ahead and met my friend Michael for coffee (at Starbucks, of course). On the way, I called Andi, the girl from HotOrNot, who lived 40 miles from Houston in Conroe, and told her I would be going out of town and asked her if she could meet us at Starbucks. She ended up showing up hours late, at midnight, just as they staff had finished closing the Starbucks. I'm glad I waited, because we had a lot of fun, but as I'm writing this I'm paying the price for having stayed out til 6:00 AM. I'm reeeally tired. I need to get some sleep before 10:00 PM, at which time Michelle will be useless for driving, or so she claims.


September 20

Having left Conroe at 5:00 AM and raced the 60 miles to my parents' to avoid running into heavy Houston rush hour traffic, which is worse than having your nads ground up in a blender, I reached the house at 6:00 AM and immediately set about creating a list of stores to visit in TX,OK,TN,KY,KS,MO,IN,OH,MI,IL,WI,NB,IA, and MN. This only required me to label the photos from my previous trip for those states so they would be entered in the database and I could run the query of stores not visited. I had already, wisely enough, downloaded the latest store listings from the Starbucks web site. I came up with a list of 41 stores, two of which I have already struck from my list, one for being a business alliance, and the other, in Tulsa, not yet open for business.

Hey, what's a Rodster? I just saw on the the highway, US-59 north in Marshall, TX.

I didn't have time to print maps of all the stores, but I already had some maps left over from my previous trip, for stores already listed that I didn't visit. I did print up a couple of newer articles about my project, to add to my "credentials" and hopefully ensure me free coffee.

I e-mailed Michelle and told her I needed some sleep, and that we would have to leave later, possibly as late as 3:00. She immediately called me and said that wouldn't give us enough time to meet the seller. So I settled on just a couple of hours of sleep, from about 7:30 to 9:30, and then I got up, had some breakfast, vacuumed the car, arranged my little egg crate foam cushion, and packed enough for the weekend. But by the time I got to Michelle's and we got on hour way, losing some time making a final update to my web site, and buying some stuff for the trip, it was 1:10, 70 minutes behind our scheduled departure time of noon. But my time projections were based on 1400 miles at 70 MPH, and the true distance was not much further than 1300 miles, and one we got on the interstate we could definitely go faster.

I immediately tried to get some sleep in the back, but there was a lot of tossing and turning and needing to whiz. I think I only managed a few minutes before we stopped for a drive-thru Whattaburger. After lunch, having Michelle's laptop, I tried updating this log, but I only typed a few paragraphs before developing a headache and going back to try and sleep, which was kinda difficult with Michelle reaching back and grabbing my crotch all the time while she should have been driving... or maybe I was just dreaming.

A few hours later I remembered to check the reception on Red River radio, and it's coming in clear, so I can listen to the rest of "All Things Considered", and a particularly interesting 30-minute report on how a category 5 hurricane could destroy New Orleans, most of which is under sea level and only kept from washing away by 2000 miles of levees. After ATC, the "Motley Fool Radio Show", which I had not heard on any other NPR affiliate anywhere in the country in all my traveling. That's one of the joys of traveling, listening to shows, mostly on public or listener-suppported, or college stations, not available in Dallas or Houston, both of which have a dearth of really cool radio stations. One interesting coincidence is that one of the questions asked in a quiz on the Motley Fool show was about which states did not have a Starbucks. In the past week, two different people e-mailed me asking me the same question. Is that, like, the quiz question of the week? Perhaps brought on by the opening of the Iowa store and an related article?

Anyway, went back to sleep for a while. Not too long before Little Rock, I couldn't sleep anymore, so when we stopped for gas I took over the wheel and took us into Memphis. On I-240 east heading to the new store at Winchester and Hacks Cross, some big collision had traffic tied up for miles in the opposite direction, so we made a note to NOT take that route back. The barista at the store was pretty cool, and interested in my project, surro I chatted with him a while. Came away highly caffeinated with two shots for the road. We didn't take I-240 back to I-55, and since taking I-40 all the way around would be longer, we cut through town, and as we were stopped at lights in the rougher parts of town, Michelle mentioned being a little nervous by the guys she was seeing. I told her she hadn't spent enough time in rough parts of town.

Anyway, that caffeine didn't last me as long as I thought it would, and I began to tired fairly quickly. And there was this fog all the way up I-55--Michelle thought it had to do with the river that we were paralleling. I don't know. But what I did know was that the driving was becoming more and more difficult, and I decided to stop and get some rest at the welcome center in Missouri. So I passed up the last rest area in Arkansas, only to discover the one in MO was closed, and 41 miles to the next one. Too far for me, the way I was feeling, so we stopped in the next down and pulled into a motel parking lot. An hour and a half later, I started driving again, and for some reason I felt even worse, and so I pulled over at the very next exit into the parking lot of a Dairy Queen that appeared to have a historic design, as did the police car parking out in front. Like something out of the Keystone Cops. I wished we hadn't been in a hurry so that I could have waited 'til daylight to photograph it. Michelle took over after not too long, and we started up again. I slept until about 9:00 AM.


September 21

Michelle drove until we were close to Chicago, and once I gave up on trying to sleep I took advantage of her laptop to update my trip log, and also to type of up few paragraphs of my log from the previous trip, which I still had not finished.

Once we neared Chicago, I took over the wheel and drove us smack into the usual heavy traffic approaching Chicago from the south, but we cleared it and made our way to Toast, an excellent breakfast spot I discovered on a previous trip. Having had my mind set on Toast, I had declined to snack at a couple of pit stops on the way, so all I could think about was food by the time we arrived. It was late in the morning, so of course there was a bit of a way. We walked around the block so Michelle could stretch her legs, and around the corner I spotted a hummingbird. I like hummingbirds!

Since Michelle was buying, I ordered both the strawberry crepes and the eggs and toast, and two large glasses of excellent fresh-tasting orange juice. When I finished, I felt completely bloated, but it was worth it!

Stopped at Kinko's to check mail and had a message from the reporter in Des Moines who had interviewed me for the paper telling me a friend of hers at a TV news station was interested in a story.

At Lincoln/Damen/Irving Park, I was about to get my free coffee, but then Michelle interrupted the flow by coming up to the counter with a juice, so the barista charged me for both of them. At the Evanston they had heard of me, presumably from Shirley who had moved on to manage the Des Moines store.

It was slow-going from downtown Evanston to the interstate, but once we arrived I put the pedal to the metal northbound into Wisconsin so that we would arrive at Algoma at 6:30.

I developed a headache, which got worse and worse, and by the time we got off the interstate onto the state road towards Algoma and stopped for gas, I had to take some Tylenol.

We arrived at 6:30 as expected but had to wait for for the guy until about 7:15, so we had dinner at the Penguin City Restaurant, run by a guy who is nuts for penguins. The decor was cool, but the spaghetti was lousy. But Michelle paid, so I couldn't complain. Then she gave me $80 for gas to get back, $57 we had spent getting here plus some extra.

Algoma may be a tiny lakeside town, but I saw Mobil stations with video screens at the pumps displaying not an ad, but rather "Wheel of Fortune". I had never seen this before.

We went over to some parking lot to meet the guy. The car was kind of cool, but I didn't see what Michelle saw in it, being so old. Oh, yeah, it was the first car she ever wanted. I stuck around until they left to go on a test drive, and then I headed out on SR-54 westbound towards Green Bay and then SR-29 to Wausau, where I arrive with some time to spare and chat with the manager a bit and plan my route to Des Moines. He suggests going through Rockford, IL, but to me it looks longer by 100 miles. Boy, is it cold as I take the photo.

I get on the road and immediately start to feel tired. I'm not drowsy, exactly, and I don't know how to describe the feeling, but I wasn't all there. For one, I wasn't able to look at my map while driving without becoming nauseated. Still, I stuggle the 68 miles south on I-39 to SR-21, where I head west and immediately see a "wayside", which is what Wisconsin calls these turn-outs, or mini rest areas. Small, but at least there is a restroom. I'm tired, but these two guys in the parking lot look creepy, and I decide not to risk going to sleep. So I drive on and luckily spot another wayside, because I'm really tired now. This wayside is pitch dark. No one else there. Once my eyes adjust, I notice I'm just on this side of some body of water, with a bridge spanning over it. If I had a camera with better control, I could have taken a good photo.

I sleep, and at some point in the middle of the night I'm woken by a bunch of owls hooting and screeching. I even think I see one flying past through the rear window (of my hatchback), but I might have been dreaming. Still, the screeching goes on for a while, but I manage to get to sleep.

At some point I start driving again, SR-21 to I-94, where I nearly reverse direction and head eastbound so that I can pick up I-90 westbound just a few miles down the road, which takes me through La Crosse and into Minnesota and another rest area, where I have to crash again. Too bad I didn't have the phone # for some employees of Trane, based in La Crosse, that I met during a business trip back in summer '97. This was my first time returning to (through, actually), La Crosse since then.


September 22

I finally start up again around 8:00, and I'm not feeling so great. I'm already running late, so I go ahead and shave at a rest area. I turn on my phone, which I had turned off because the power cord was stuck under the seat and I didn't feel like getting out of the car in the cold to loosen it. I'm hoping it's not damaged, cause I've still got a few days before I get back home.

It's too bad I'm running late, because I don't have a chance to stop at the SPAM museum.

Finally the news station calls. She hadn't gotten my message about being late, but she'll wait for me. They want to film me driving in.

I have no more problems into Des Moines, and I call them when I'm around the block and then film me driving in, and hopefully they'll edit it out the lousy job of parallel parking plus nearly getting sideswiped by a truck. Immediately they put a microphone on me and follow me into the store, where they are expecting me. Sherie is pretty cool about the whole thing.

I stop at Kinko's to check mail and e-mail someone from the news station requesting a tape of the segment.

Then it's back to Chicagoland for the 4th time this year. Because I'm running behind, I won't have a chance to visit the Museum of Contemporary Art, which was hosting an exhibit I wanted to see.

Finally the fatigure catches up with me, and I crash in the shade of a tree at a welcome center 76 miles from the IL border. There I notice something unusual--the higher octane (89) ethanol gas is cheaper than the 87 octane, which is the reverse of how I've seen it everywhere else. Attedant says it has to do with government incentives.

In IL I exit I-88 before the toll station and take US-30 into Chicagoland. It moves pretty fast, 70 MPH on some stretches. Plus it's about 17 miles shorter, so I save more than just the toll.

I grumble at clueless drivers who don't understand that when I slow down and move to the right it means I'm letting them pass me (two-lane road).

I wanted to revisit the 75th St. store in Naperville and actually go inside, but the light was fading so I head straight to Geneva.

When I arrived at the Starbucks, I got this crazy idea to say "May I offer you some literature?" and went outside to take the photo. When I got back in, the barista hadn't even looked at it, thinking I was a Jehova's witness. This gave me the idea to, at the next Starbucks, lead off with the cliche, "Have you discovered Jesus?". On the way, I lost all the light, which would have happened anyway even if I hadn't lost a few minutes trying to find an alternative route around a delay caused by a firetruck. There was no alternate route. Anyhow, the Jesus thing wasn't such a good idea, because the flustered barista turned to her manager who said I would have to leave. Fortunately I was able to get her to look at the photo on the article, realize it was me, and that I was just joking about the Jesus thing. Once she discovered my true purpose, she was pretty cool. We took a photo and she gave me a Chicago Tribune Starbucks cap.

I headed back towards Chicago proper and tried to find a Colombian restaurant I had spotted on Irving Park, in the hopes it would still be open. But it wasn't. Because I was late, I didn't have a chance to drop by Irving Park and Kostner again, to say hello to the baristas that had sent me an e-mail inviting me to drop by again. I went to my aunt's, but the number I had was incorrect, and the security guard couldn't find the correct number, and his boss wouldn't allow him to have a message sent up to the room. So I just left to find some BK for dinner, some juice from Jewel Osco, where a cashier gave me a nasty look when I expressed frustration at her faulty direction to a non-existent soda machine. I tried to sleep in the parking lot, and maybe caught a wink or two, and then went to the Kinko's across the street, but I couldn't sleep and finally just started driving towards Indiana.

I got off the interstate at Broadway and drove through Gary and observed the neighborhood change flavor, from run-down toward middle-class, as I drove into Merrillville (which has a Starbucks) to US-30. Bought a few bars of cheap chocolate, 3 for 99 cents, 230 calories each, at the gas station and headed east on US-30 for a while, looking for a decent place to crash. Finally I settled on the parking lot of a McDonald's and gas station.


September 23

Not long after starting up again on US-30, around 7:30 or 8:00 maybe, I was passed by a car blazing along at 90 MPH. On the interstate, I would have thought it great, but on a highway with cross traffic and driving into the sun, which cut down on visibility, I thought he was nuts. But I still followed anyway, until Plymouth, where he lost me.

I reached Ft. Wayne and checked my e-mail to find a message from a guy in Rochester, MN, alerting me to a store I had missed. Aaaagh!!! I had just passed Rochester EARLIER THAT MORNING. True, I was running late for my interview with the news, but had I known the store was there, I would take taken extraordinary steps to visit it before Des Moines. Now who know how long it will be before I get back up there. It's not a common route for me, because I usually driving into or out of Minnesota via Minneapolis, along I-94 or I-35, not I-90.

I also received yet another message, the third, from somebody asking me which states lacked a Starbucks.

I arrive at the Ft. Wayne Starbucks and the barista spots my short cup and asks me what it's for, and says it won't be useful there. I say that once I explain why I'm there, the manager might change her mind. Which she does, having heard of my project. And she explains something about an older district or regional manager having some policy against short cups. I've run into that in Indianapolis, too. But I was grateful that she was helpful in telling me which Indianapolis stores had just opened, or not opened yet, saving me the trouble of calling them up on the drive down (and wasting Sprint PCS minutes).

I drove down I-69 and almost missed my exit, SR-32 to Noblesville, because I was adding up gas receipts and calculating how much I would need for gas to reach Houston. Specifically, I wanted to determine whether I would have enough gas to detour to Columbus. I finally decided I didn't. Driving through Anderson I spotted some lady in need of a ride and drove her down the street. I couldn't really understand what she was saying, but it was something about her car having broken down, or been towed, or something like that, and that she needed to get back home so her friend could drive her to the doctor or something.

Anyway, I was recognized at the Noblesville store, and at the Fishers store, and at the new Greenwood store, by a manager that I had run into twice on my last trip through Indy. He had been at the Southport and Emerson store, which had just opened, and then I saw him again a few minutes later at the first Greenwood store. This time, he had heard of my project, and told me I'd have a lot more Indy-area stores to visit in the coming 18 months. Great.

Outside the store, by chance, I saw a local artist arriving to hang art up in the store. Though I had seen plenty of stores around the country with art, I had never before happened upon the artists.

On County Line Rd out to SR-37, some big-ass bug flies into my car, smacks me in the chest, and freaks me out. I think it was a dragonfly, but I'm not sure. I had to pull over into someone's driveway because it was a two-lane road, but I had to find the bug and get rid of the buzzing. Finally it flew out, and I was relieved. Then a fly cut through my car, in one window and out the other. Come on bugs--stay out of my car!

My nose has been running for a while, and I'm not sure if I'm getting sick, or if it's allergies acting up. I take some sudafed, the last pill.

SR-37 takes me to Bloomington, Indiana, where the Indiana University store has been there for years, but always too far out of the way for my timetable. I finally visit Bloomington, as luck would have it, a week or two before a new store is slated to open. Great. The store itself is in a cool building, large, and jam-packed with college girls and other students. I ask around, and it seems somebody lives above the store--lucky bastards--don't need a coffee maker. Just walk downstairs for the good stuff. While I'm photographing the store, everyone else is looking at the fire trucks down the street. Something about a fire in the law building.

I leave the store and rush to my car, as my nasal cohesion matrix completely collapses, and I can't stop the flow of the runny nose any more. I seek out Kinko's and drive around a few times before figuring out which way to go. Meanwhile, I field a call about a possible job in Houston, and I ask if I can call back in about 15 or so. I wanted some cheap pizza, but no one seemed to be able to point me in the right direction, so I finally settled on Wendys. I call the recruiter/consultant back and he describes the project, I say okay, and we basically seal the deal right there. So now it's Monday, and I need to reach Dallas by Wednesday to fill out the paperwork so I can be in Houson to start the job on Thursday. I am greatly relieved that I finally found something.

I continue south of SR-37 to US-150 east towards Louisville, and the road is so curvy and hilly that it's making me dizzy.

I visit the two new Louisville stores in a hurry so that I will have time to reach Lexington before that store closes.

I'm feeling exhausted, dizzy, and disoriented as I blaze east, as fast as the darkness and road condition will allow, on I-64 to Lexington. I call up a couple of friends just to keep myself from falling asleep. Can't even make notes for my journal because it makes me dizzier. But I make it, and chill out at the store chatting about my project until they close. A partner from the store in Newport, KY, is pleased to meet me and says that they had an article or picture about me for a year on the bulletin board expecting me to come in. Had they checked my website, they would have seen that I visited the store, though perhaps they missed it because I had the Newport page labeled as "Greater Cincinnati".

I was told that there would be a rest area along the Blue Grass Parkway, but I was misinformed, so once I started I had to drive the entire way, 84 miles, until it hit I-65 at Elizabethtown. Thankfully, there was a rest area just down the interstate, where I crashed for the night.


September 24

I'm up just after 7:00, or perhaps 8:00. I lose track of the time zone. On the way down towards Nashville I have to call the store twice to figure out where the Madison store is. I'm not sure if it's closer to Nashville or Galatyn, on the Galaryn Turnpike. The manager says they were talking about me at a recent district meeting. She offers me a test beverage, a shaken double shot. Tennessee and Las Vegas are test markets.

Standing at a light at Trinity and the Dickerson Turnpike, I witness a car hit a truck. I pull into the gas station and call it in. While I'm doing so, I see the white car backing up. I thought he was just pulling out of the way of the other cars and went back to talking to 911. A bit later I found out from some lady that the white car had actually run, but that a guy from the auto shop near the collison took off after him. I chided myself for not having realized what the hit-and-run driver was up to. This was the first time I had ever witness the impact of a major collision like that.

I hear something on the radio about paving on I-40 west along my route, and to detour via Highway 70. So I take that opportunity to reshoot a couple of stores in that direction, in Bellevue, and to pick up some BK. I have to get my juice at the second store, cuz the first has run out. Stupid lady parks her car right in the fire lane in front of the store with plenty of parking in the lot. When I get back on the interstate I guess I'm past the traffic.

Some tailgater gets really pissed at me, and when he finally exits he makes it a point to stare at me and give me the finger, presumably all the way up the ramp. Too bad he didn't run his truck off the road for having had his eyes on me.

On the way towards Jackson I think I blow my air conditining fuse, and turn off the A/C. But when I get to Jackson and check it, it doesn't appear broken. Still the A/C is not working. Thankfully it's not that hot. I did, however, have to add some oil to the engine. On the way I called the Jackson store to see if Beth, the manager, who had e-mailed me an invitation, was there. Turns out she was at the hospital on Memphis visiting the husband of a partner who was really sick.

I was fooled for a while by a program on a station that turned out to be a Christian station. Too bad, because the topic was actually interesting until the speaker had to go and inject religion into it.

From Jackson I took US-412 to I-155 to I-55, where in Missouri I saw a sign about seat belt checks. But I never noticed anything that looked like a checkpoint, though I did see a guy pulled over. But that could have been for anything.

I arrived in St. Louis during the rush hour but experienced no backups on the freeway until I got off at Manchester Road and started heading west, outbound, and hit heavy traffic, so it took me a while to make my way down to the Starbucks.

At the Ballwin store when I explain my project the barista asks which store stands out, and I go get my camera to show her the Fisher store, and then wait for her to close out her til. But then she just rushes off with a friend, after I had waited. Guess she wasn't really interested after all. But I get my free coffee after a 20 minute wait from the other one and rush off cuz the light is fading.

At the Chesterfield store one of the partners becomes really excited and insists on taking a photo with me. As I go out to get my camera she thinks I'm not going to come back (go figure) so I leave my articles as "collateral". I take a photo with them and also of the two baristas cuz she wants me to put it up on my site--my first such request. I exchange I get a hat and a poster. Meanwhile, I begin to itch. Turns out it's because of the wacky photo of myself in the bushes. Apparently I was allergic to the pine bushes. I took some benadryl, and hoped I would make it to the rest area out of town before the drowsiness kicked in.

At the next store one of the customers overhears, and he works for WY98 and is interested in putting me on the morning show. I give him my info, but I never hear back from his people.

By the time I reach the relocated St. Louis Galleria store, it is now dark, but I don't set up the tripod because of the security guard driving around the parking lot. Besides, I want a daylight photo.

I get some KFC and some juice at the gas station before getting on the freeway to head out of town. I stop fairly quickly, at 9:30, exhausted. I start up again around 3:30, and stop again around 6:00 AM just before Oklahoma. I have a weird dream about blowing up a building, causing some kid's death. Wonder what that means.


September 25

I start around 7:30, and it looks like I'll be late for my appointment with Vivare, the consulting firm that's hiring me for this short contract. I end up having to schedule twice, but Tony is cool about it. So I have time to detour from US-75 along US-380 to Denton to visit the Hickory Creek store, where I don't bother to introduce myself, so the barista who sees me photographing across the street comes outside to make inquiries. I show him my article, tell him to read more on the web, and rush off. No such problems down at the Lewisville store.

Meet with Vivare, and then back to Houston. Stop and hang out with Andi cause she's along the way in Conroe, and then finally get home, exhausted, and crash to get rest before work the next day.