On Planning Road Food

How do you do your summer vacation? Do you eat out for all your meals? Do you pack and plan to eat out only a few times, or only one meal per day? Are you campers or hotel-stayers? Are you extravagant? Are you “cheap?” Are you middle of the road?

Well, let me tell you, we are CHEAP!!! We take the “Great American Road trip” when we do our family vacations. We don’t camp, but we stay in inexpensive motels/hotels, and I pack or purchase groceries for the bulk of our meals. So, with the 150th Gettysburg anniversary coming up, we are planning a shorter family road trip. The plan is to do it on the money conscious side. That means Mom (that’s MeEeee) packs the bulk of our food, filling our giant cooler, and a large box of non-perishables, plus this year I am considering packing our crock pot. Today, I am starting my “menu” planning. Obviously, there will be lots of “snacking” type foods. My plan is to share with y’all what all gets packed, and it’s purpose, then when we get back, I will report on how everything worked out. There is a lot of info on what to pack for food on trips, but it appears the bulk of it is snack food, but not how well it goes over with the family, or if you are cooking your own meals on the road how that works out. What do you guys think? Am I crazy? Is it a bit of work? You bet. Is it worth it? Oh yes, because I do not find most inexpensive road meals to be satisfying, at all. I can tell you there is NOTHING like a picnic, somewhere on the road, at a beautiful roadside park. We often don’t travel via the freeway, on these trips, because we want to actually see stuff, not just make great time to the hotel.

Any how, that’s what’s going on here today. Just me doing some research, and making and revising food lists and plans. This will be the first time I am taking my daily calorie allotment into consideration…that’ll be new. I’m thinking I’ll use the heck out of my food scale, a nice permanent marker, and lots of snack sized containers and zippy bags.