i haven't been feeling well for the past six days or so. some days worse than others, but i must have caught some kind of nasty bug somewhere. due to my being sick, we still haven't celebrated my birthday, which was on thursday (and yes, i did cry because i was sick on my birthday). we are a bit behind on the celebrating over here, so we will have a lot to catch up on this weekend. i am feeling a bit better today, so things are looking up.
while i have a bit of quiet time tonight (except for the neighbor's dog that barks all night long), i thought i would write a post about real food on the road.
on our recent eight day cross-country trek, we learned a bit about balancing our desire to eat real, whole, healthy food with the reality of being on the road for eight days, not having access to a kitchen, and traveling with a one-year old. we ate meals in all kinds of different places, and by the time we finally arrived at our destination, i concluded that we did a pretty good job of eating real food on the road.
i would have loved to make all kinds of things to take on the road with us...crackers, yogurt, bread, etc...but flying home from our trip to california and leaving for our road trip left two weeks to get our house ready to be put on the market and pack up our family of three for a summer away from home. i did what i could and called it good.
breakfast:
most of the hotels we stayed in had a free continental breakfast available in the mornings. as we were on a tight budget for this trip, we appreciated this but it was challenging for us as we are used to eating eggs, smoothies, quiche, or soaked oatmeal for breakfast. we compromised. a couple of times we brought our own bread (ezekial bread) and jam (raspberry) to the dining area and made toast. one morning i decided i was going to have a waffle (you know, the kind that you make in the little waffle maker?). i didn't feel very well after that and didn't do that again. our little one ate instant oatmeal - i chose the one with the least amount of things added to it and decided i had to be okay with that.
there were a couple of hotels that didn't offer breakfast, so i brought boiled eggs and yogurt and granola along for those mornings and that worked out great. we all liked it, and it was easy. one morning near the end of our trip, we went to the hotel lobby for breakfast and there was nowhere to sit. we were staying in a historic little town at the time, so we decided to try a local place for breakfast and we were really glad we did. we were able to get eggs, and we also treated ourselves to bacon, hash-browns, and toast. we met some locals, sipped some hot coffee, and enjoyed a breakfast out.
yogurt and granola in our hotel room before we hit the road.
suggestions for next time: bring some instant oatmeal to eat for breakfast, definitely bring the yogurt and granola again
lunch:
we decided before we left that we wanted to do picnic lunches. we figured it would be a good way to break up the day, it would save us money because we wouldn't be going out, and we could decide what we wanted to eat. for the most part, our picnic lunches worked out great.
on day 1, we were getting ready to stop for lunch just as a massive thunderstorm was moving in. we had a big breakfast that morning and we weren't that hungry anyway, so we just snacked in the car. we had our picnic for supper that day instead. on day 2, we spent the entire day driving through 40 mph winds and decided not to attempt a picnic. we stopped for lunch somewhere that day, but i don't remember where. another day, we were driving through the desert and could not find anywhere to stop and have our picnic. we finally came upon a little desert town but couldn't find a park (or shade!) anywhere, so we ended up eating at a sonic. there was another day when it was very windy, so i quickly threw together some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in a parking lot and we ate them in the car.
what did we have for our picnic lunches?
sandwiches made with sprouted ezekial bread (until it got moldy and then we bought the best bread we could find at a grocery store along the way), lunchmeat (nitrate and sugar free), tomato, hummus, and mustard
carrots, celery, and hummus
raisins
for a break from sandwiches one day, we had salmon on kashi crackers
we also had bananas and oranges along, so we had a nice variety of options for lunch.
suggestions for next time: consider making sandwiches in the morning, especially if it is going to be a windy day
supper:
there were a couple of days when we had sandwiches for dinner in our hotel room, but we usually ate at a restaurant for dinner. it was nice to go out for dinner after a long day of driving. we chose local restaurants and enjoyed the experience! because we were on a budget, and because we couldn't really keep leftovers anyway, we almost always shared a dinner. it worked out really well. one night we shared a buffalo burger, one night a grilled chicken dinner, one night a steak, and the rest i don't remember. our little one ended up eating macaroni and cheese or spaghetti for dinner most nights.
fort collins, co. coppersmith's brewery. beer bread. yum!
suggestions for next time: rack my brain to try to come up with something we can bring along for baby to eat for dinner (she is very picky these days!)
snacks:
we took quite a few snack breaks during our trip. when baby needed a break (or we needed a break) or when it was taking longer to get to our destination than we thought and we needed something to tide us over...out came the snacks!
pecans
pistachios
granola bars
annie's cheddar bunnies (for baby!)
homemade trail mix (peanuts, sunflower seeds, and raisins)
and of course, fruits and veggies.
treats:
what is a road trip without treats? we got a couple of treats along the way. actually, we kept saying, "today we are going to stop for ice cream"...and then we wouldn't be able to find an ice cream place, or we would see one but the little one would be sleeping and we wouldn't want to stop, and we would get to the end of the day and we wouldn't have gotten ice cream! we did finally stop for ice cream.
no...we didn't buy her two ice cream cones. when we stopped for ice cream, the only time she wasn't crying was when she was holding both of our ice cream cones! we ended up leaving the restaurant and eating the ice cream in the car while we drove.
and of course we got sarsaparilla floats. and they tasted so good in the middle of the desert!
we also brought several treats along with us. we figured that this stopped us from buying more unhealthy sweet things along the way. here's what we brought:
newman's own licorice. i bought this at the health food store before we left because i thought it would be a good treat to bring along. this is the tangerine flavor, which i didn't like, but we also tried the raspberry flavor and that one was really good.
chocolate chip cookies
dried organic apricots.
sugarless peanut butter fudge brownies i made a while back and took out of the freezer before we left.
so...that's what we ate! i am pretty happy with how it all went. of course, there are always unexpected things that come up when traveling, but i think we did pretty well overall. we will be doing it again in two months when we drive home, and it's nice to have more of an idea of what to expect after doing it on the way out here.
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