This little western town lies between Death Valley, the lowest point in the U.S., and Mt. Whitney-- at 14,494 feet, it's the highest point in the 48 states. There's no Walmart, no chain stores, no big towns for miles-- yet the area is fairly populated, just isolated by the Sierras on one side and the Nevada desert on the other. It's a wonderful town in a wonderful corridor along U.S. 395, and the whole region lies rather uncorrupted by the sprawl that's spread across the rest of America.

Coffee: No coffee shops, just diner coffee. Bishop, about an hour north, is a cool town with a couple cafes.
Food: The Merry-Go-Round restaurant, in an old merry-go-round on U.S. 395 right downtown, probably has the best food. It's restaurant prices, but the supermarket here's got a lot of natural foods for its size, too.
Nature: You can hike around the Alabama Hills, strange rocky formations where they film a lot of westerns (see photos below), on your way up towards Mt. Whitney.
Other Things to Do: Walk aimlessly about, enjoy the absolute lack of hipness, drink beer at one of the two saloons, go rock climbing, wonder what your life would be like if you grew up here.
Nearby: Manzanar is an old WWII Japanese internment camp a few miles north, see the Manzanar travel guide for more info. If you keep driving north... through Bishop... you can either take a gorgeous mountain road into Yosemite (be prepared to pay $20 for the entrance fee) or a gorgeous mountain road up to Tahoe... Ridgecrest, to the south, is probably the nearest town (an army town, of no real interest)-- keep going and you'll hit the Mojave. Lovely.

 

the Sierras in the distance, overlooking a now-vanished temple at Manzanar