Just off the Interstate in Battle Mountain, NV is the adorable Press Coffee House. With a cute outdoor area and a comfy couch inside it was the yin to the yang of the 100+ degree high desert summer day.

It wasn’t though the perfect stop. Corey and I like our Yeti coffee mugs and often bring them into places like the Press Coffee House. Sometimes this gets us a discount. Occasionally a barista will refuse to fill them up (this is true on all Amtrak trains). This time though our request led to an Abbot and Costello like standoff.

I put in our order and then offered up our cups. The barista said that would be no problem, but asked for our cup sizes. I said I wasn’t sure but please just add into them the smallest available size. Her reply was that she could do this but…..she still needed to know the cup size as that is what they charge by. We spent a minute dancing around this point. I  asked her to imagine a world where gas stations charge by the capacity of a car fuel’s tank and not by the amount of gas taken. She said she understood my point but that her coffee place charges by the size of the cup. To pacify me she assured me that they would only pour the amount of coffee I wanted into the cup (so the smallest size). Also I would get a 10% discount for bringing in my own cup. But she was not going to complete the sale until she knew the size of our cups. After that there was nothing to do than admit defeat. Drinks were served in paper cups and then poured by our own hands into cool stickered up Yeti mugs. Turns out they hold about 12 ounces.

We still definitely recommend the Press Coffee House over the gas station across the street. Hopefully we will be welcomed back the next time we swing through town. Long live the road, independent coffee houses and crazy ass conversations like the one above.