Driving 600 miles is hard work.

I'm glad I did it, though. Twice, even.

Connecticut-Northern VA on Tues., the rest of the way home this morning. It was nice to leave New Haven under much more pleasant circumstances than I did four years ago. Healing, in a way.

Random observations:

1) Attn, Oregon and New Jersey: stop pretending like "not having to pump your own gas" is a selling point. I am an impatient person. I would rather pump my own gas than wait in line for an attendant to do it.

But I can't complain too much, since New Jersey has the cheapest gas in the country. The fact that $2.91/gal. counts as cheap, though, is moderately distressing.

2) I have a new candidate for my worst cup of coffee ever: The McDonald's at 190 Garrisonville Rd., Stafford, Virginia, this morning. I know I shouldn't expect good coffee at McDonald's, but it oughta be drinkable if they're going to charge money for it, right? I think it had been sitting out too long.

If I, a connoisseur of bad coffee, notice that a cuppa is bad, it must be really bad.

Previous record-holder: that served on a flight from DFW to Bradley Airport @ Hartford, Conn., in November 2000. That coffee managed to be weak, bitter, and tepid, all at the same time. At least the McDonald's coffee wasn't tepid. It wasn't especially bitter, either. Just nasty.

Okay; upon reflection, the airplane coffee retains the title of worst-ever. The McDonald's coffee is now number two on my worst-coffee-ever list, displacing that provided at the Brookwood Inn in Durham in 2003. I have had many other bad cups of coffee in my life, but these bear special mention.

(Instant coffee is disqualified from the worst-ever list on the grounds [NPI] that I knew what I was drinking when I picked it up. But bad "real" coffee can be far worse than good instant coffee.)