Eating Well On A Road Trip

I love road trips.  Good thing, too, because we tend to take a lot of them, what with living 700 miles from our family.  We love to visit them all, so we cram all of us into the car and make the trek to whomsoever's house.  We usually make a stop at the grocery store to load up on snacks for the trip, most of which tend to be of the terrible-for-you variety, and that bag full of junk ends up stuffed somewhere down by my feet.  None of which is good for the waistline or the budget.

This past week my parents were the ones to make the drive to our house, and as I was helping them get ready to head home last night, I noticed that my parent's idea of packing food for a road trip was vastly different, and vastly superior, to ours.  Their road trip food program starts with a large cooler bag that looks like this:

Big enough to fit all manner of things, yet small and squishy enough to fit in many different spots in the car.

In that cooler bag, she places clear, tupperware sort of boxes, packed with each meal or snacks.  For example, they had a breakfast box with milk and pastry type food:

She even includes a plastic zip lock with napkins for trash and whatnot.

I love the word whatnot.  So does my sister-in-law, who I call my Seester.

I digress.

Then there is a lunch box.

There are sandwiches under those massive chocolate bars, but my mom is no dummy.  She knows what's really important in life.

Chocolate, that's what.

Then there was a large ziplock with snack stuff in it.  Some chips, some cut up apples, some cheese.  You get the drill.  But you don't get a picture, because somehow I missed that one.

Lastly, she stuffs a bajillion, or maybe just 8, water bottles in the bag, leaving it looking like this:

... and adds a couple of plastic grocery bags for trash.

Voila!  Meals and snacks to get them through the entire road trip, roughly a 12 hour drive.

I am definitely going this route the next time we hit the road.  That way I can plan actual meals for us, rather than just hitting fast food joints the whole way to California, and filling the gaps with junk. 

And that, my friends, is how we (will) eat well, and stay on a budget, on road trips.

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