Ramblings by Jes, Part 2 - Food

On a trip like this, we knew that we were going to be eating a lot of dinners out. We, as a family, love eating out and making meals is not my favorite thing to do. So, I knew that eating meals out would be nice – for awhile. As it turns out, 4 weeks in, we’re not really tired of eating out. We tend not to eat at fast food unless we really need to get in and out quick, so that helps. Fast food can get really unappealing after awhile. For the most part, we have eaten breakfast at the hotel – as long as we get up in time.

We’ve had the gambit of breakfasts, everything from simple cereal and toast to nice, hot breakfasts with a cool pancake maker to a full breakfast buffet. But, if we have a breakfast included with our hotel, we’ve taken full advantage. For a lot of the trip, we’ve been in the middle of nowhere at National Parks. Since the food availability is unpredictable at the parks, we would stop somewhere to get some food for lunch, usually just at a convenience store. Fortunately, most of them had some sandwich makings and hiking snacks. We’d head out to hike a trail or two, snacking along the way. Finally, we’d get to making sandwiches at the car mid-afternoon. Then, we’d try to soak in as much of the rest of the park before it got too late. We wouldn’t even leave the parks until 6 or 7, as we headed out to our next destination. Since we were in the middle of nowhere, there were usually no restaurants around. So, we would drive and drive, hoping to find a good place to eat. It was usually 8 or even 9 before we found somewhere to eat, often a hole in the wall place in a small town along the road – some good, some not so much. Then, we’d drive a couple hours before we crashed in a roadside hotel and start the whole process again. We’ve really gotten into a weird eating pattern, but at least we’re all on the same schedule. I’ve been amazed that the kids have rarely complained about being hungry – thankfully, since often we could do nothing about it. One day we actually went 9 hours between meals. We had eaten at IHOP at 11 and then went to Death Valley and nothing, nothing, nothing until we finally found a gas station at 8 PM. That food tasted good!


As you can imagine, we haven’t eaten the healthiest food. We bought a thermoelectric cooler that plugs into the car. I had plans of filling it with healthy food to snack on in the car. But, that requires stopping at the grocery store, and literally, we could not find one and we rarely had time for that anyway. We are in constant motion. Usually we just made quick stops at convenience stores. I think we’ll have to have a completely new diet when we get home.