Road Trip Report, Day Five

CBS News correspondent Jim Axelrod hit the road to chart pain at the pump. Here's his Web-exclusive daily road diary.

Day five of our trip takes us from Des Moines, Iowa to Lincoln, Neb. where they are getting ready for the State Fair, which opens tomorrow. What better place than the Cornhusker state for a look at ethanol — a corn based alternative fuel. Ethanol gets thrown around as a concept every time there's a period of price spiking with gasoline.

On our way to Lincoln we stopped to fill up in Cass County, Iowa. A man named Chris Stuetelberg stopped us to share his feelings.

Chris is a bundler for the Des Moines Register. He picks up papers from a printing facility in western Iowa and distributes them to deliverers. He drives a 100 miles a day and 300 on Sunday. His fuel costs have gone up more than 30 percent in the last year. He used to have $800 in his pocket at the end of the month. Now he has $200.

This isn't a guy whose vacation plans have changed because of rising gas prices. Gas prices are not merely a nuisance, nor an annoyance, nor an irritation. This is a guy wondering if his business is going to go under. This is a guy whose wife has to get a full-time job to make ends meet.

Gas prices have made Chris an angry man.

He wants to know why there isn't wider use of ethanol. It's cheaper, he says. And what's more, it would keep more of the money used to produce and consume it in the farm communities of Iowa and Nebraska. He's not alone in wanting to see the United States less reliant on foreign oil.

Meeting Chris provided the most sobering and serious moments of our trip so far. And it came just after our warmest.

Last night on the CBS Evening News, Anchor John Roberts was saying goodbye to me and suggested since I was in Iowa, that I try something called Pella Letters. I confess I had no idea what he was talking about. While we were pulling over to get gas in Cass County, a delivery truck pulled over. A man named Joe Becker hopped out. He said, "are you the guys from CBS driving cross-country?" When I told him yes, he said, "I thought so. I saw John Roberts tell you to try Pella Letters. I sell Pella Letters. I saw you on the highway and chased you down to give you some." Pella Letters, for those of you who don't know, are the world's most delicious almond paste filled pastries. Now what are the odds of that?

Not just our warmest moment, Joe, our sweetest too.