In an utterly untypical pattern of behavior, for the second weekend in a row I have gone on a road trip. This time it was six hours to the south, to Pittsburgh, where some members of my side of the family were congregating.

Determined to make an early getaway, I allowed my classical music station alarm to go off as usual at 4:50 a.m. By shortly after 6:00 a.m I was parking my rented charteuse Ford Focus beside Rabba Fine Foods to grab bananas and a coffee.

For a change, the only persons in the store were myself and a clerk, who was busy brewing coffee. The clerk, whose first language was not English, asked, "Do you like..." and here produced a series of unintelligible sounds with his mouth and throat.

"Do I like what?" I asked.

"[indecipherable]."

"I'm sorry, I don't understand."

"[indecipherable]," he said again, and at this pulled out a garbage can and showed me a wrapper with word "hazelnut" on it.

"Oh! Hazelnut! Yes, I like hazelnut," I said, "but I'm in a hurry and can't wait for it to brew. I'm going on a trip. Here, I'll just take some of this Columbia Supremo."

"Where are you going?" the clerk asked.

"Pittsburgh," I said--and we had a brief conversation. It is the most we had ever said to each other and it felt good, as if we were part of a community instead of just anonymous figures in the little daily drama of urban life.

I got in the car, drove away, and began sipping the coffee, which turned out to be strong and bitter. (Needing the caffeine, however, I eventually drank every last drop.) It was raining and foggy, partly obscuring the lit skyscrapers a few blocks away as I turned towards the expressway. After skirting along the city's southern border for ten minutes I merged with the Queen Elizabeth Way, which would take me to the U.S. border and points south.

So once again I was on my way, on the open road, and again was finding that...life is good.