Jenna Caplette migrated from California to Montana in the early 1970s, first living on the Crow Indian reservation. A Healing Arts Practitioner, she owns Bozeman BodyTalk & Integrative Healthcare. She says, " Health is resiliency, a zest for the journey. It’s about coming awake to the joy of being alive. As a practitioner, its a privilege to facilitate that healing process, to help weave new patterns of health & well-being. “ And by the way, healthier, happier people help create a healthier, happier world.

I had one of the worst cups of coffee I can remember while on a road trip to Rapid City. You could say I deserved it. Stopping ifor gasoline in Gillette, Wyoming, I saw a sign for espresso, pulled over to a building with dented up siding and a seen-better-days sliding aluminum window with a closed sign propped in it. As soon as I drove up a woman appeared, moved the closed sign off to the side, smiled and gave me a story about why it had been there. None of it seemed very hopeful but I’d been on the road for a long time and didn’t want to drive around Gillette looking for better.

I ordered. She listened, smiled again, and said, “How about I surprise you?”

For my cappucino, I suspect she dumped instant coffee and artifical creamer into hot water. When I pulled in to a gas station, I had another sip, thinking it couldn’t really be as awful as all that?

It could. I laughed, threw it out.

The progression of coffee on the drive from Bozeman to Rapid City began with good and tasty. Columbus Falls, not so good but OK. And then, Gillette.

But then Bozeman has become a coffee town. When Leaf & Bean originally opened in the Downtowner Mall on Willson decades ago it is was a BIG deal. Coming from the San Francisco Bay Area and spending my high school and college years drinking Peet’s Coffee, having espresso available in Bozeman was thrilling. A select group of us frequented Lear & Bean but it must have been a significant enough number that it wasn’t long before it relocated to Main Street. It was followed by a succession of coffee houses coming and going, and coming, until Leaf & Bean itself went this past spring.

Its passing is sad though I’d changed my coffee-allegiance several times — and melted a succession of handles on Italian on-the-stove espresso pots until I finally bought a plug in gizmo. Not one of the fancy ones. Just basic, though it will steam milk.

I still bring home Peets Coffee from the Bay Area when I visit. When I saw one of their blends recently in a sale flyer for one of the local big box stores something of the mystic of Peet’s died for me. The same when I found out Starbuck’s now owns it. But still. its the coffee I grew up on. Full bodied and oh-so-good.

I remember making the decision to like coffee on a high school camping trip. It certainly didn’t come naturally. It seemed like something grown-ups do and I was in to things that made me feel grown-up.

So I drank coffee. And learned to like it. Especially when camping. I liked Cowboy coffee, with the grounds thrown right in and boiled strong, then settled with cold water. I remember drinking coffee like that with old timers at Crow when I lived there in the 70’s, and once up in the Big Horn Mountains at a Forestry Outlook. I drank it in enamel cups, in chipped ceramic, in stryofoam.

In Bozeman, I gave my fickle allegiance to businesses where I could get a free cup, completely disregarding flavor in the interest of free. And I still sometimes like that bottom-of-the pot rotgut like they serve at the tire store when I practice the season ritural of snowtires on, snowtires off.

Mostly though, I prefer espresso.

Over the miles and the years, I learned where I could get relatively good cup while on the road in Montana and looked forward to visiting those places. They were few and felt special. A gift shop in Lewistown, one in Choteau.

I admit that I spend a few years where I only drank green tea but won’t write an ode to that time.

While in Rapid City I found a funky little coffee place that roasted their own and got Aussie Cappucinos.. I liked the cache of the name, and the guy with the accent who served it up with a little shake of chocolate and a perfect leaf pattern on the top. And I liked having a place that felt familiar for a few days, where they recognized me — home but not home.

On the return trip? I didn’t stop in Gillette. At all.