Notes from the Road
After a month driving around the country in our late model Acura crammed with luggage, coolers and food bins, I’m happy to report that we kept true to our original credo of No Fast Food!. We also learned a ton from the experience. Here are a few ideas for you to consider the next time you find yourselves on the road, hungry kids in the back, searching for someplace to eat that doesn’t involve a fast-food drive-thru menu.
If our experience is anything to go by, skipping the ubiquitous chain restaurants as you travel will pay numerous dividends, and not just to your waistline. All it takes is a bit of planning, a decent data connection, and some patience.
University Towns
As you plan out your trip itinerary, consider driving through a few college towns. Each state has a number of large universities teaming with students and faculty who create a demand for diverse types of cuisine (Asian, Latin, vegetarian, vegan, gourmet, etc.). This is partly the reason why restaurant start-ups will often locate their prototype stores near large schools. Looking for a Whole Foods or a Trader Joe’s? Try places like Madison, WI or Austin, TX. And just about every city with a college or large educational institution will have its fair share of falafel places, salad and soup joints, coffee shops, plus quality sandwich and pizza restaurants. Also, most of these college towns are pretty darn charming, so totally worth the stop.
Grocery Stores
When we travel as a family, we tend to over pack. My wife and I bring clothes we never wear; the kids fill their backpacks with toys they rarely play with. So when planning our initial supply of dry foods, we over did it a bit as well. I had purchased two large plastic bins from Ikea and filled them with natural chips, crackers, dried foods, emergency drinks and various types of snacks and granola bars. By the time we returned home after a month, we had only used 70% of the original stores.
As such, when we stopped in at a grocery store (every three days or so), it was mostly to stock up on perishables like cheese, milk, lunch stuff and the like for our monster cooler. For a helpful shopping list, see my previous posting from Madison, Wisconsin.
One thing I noticed: the more upscale the town, the larger the selection of natural and healthy foods in any given grocery store. Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, Fresh Markets and Ralph’s are dispersed throughout the country. But there are also plenty of other chains that carry high-quality food and produce, so be adventurous.
Leftovers
We’re not the biggest of eaters. So whenever we hit a local restaurant for dinner, there were usually leftovers. We just had to train ourselves to remember to remove the takeout box from the fridge before we checked out in the morning. (I would like to publicly apologize to all the room cleaners who opened the mini-fridge to find a container of our leftover pasta primavera or whatever.)
For instance, I ordered some wonderful chicken fajitas in Sedona, AZ, ate half, then made rolled-up tacos with the rest, asked for a box and chilled them in the fridge for a healthy, easy dinner the next day at a truck stop somewhere between the Grand Canyon and Colorado Springs.
Big Truck Stops
Speaking of which, there were times, in the middle of the country, where fast food options seemed to be the only option. Scenario: everyone is hungry, it’s 100 miles to the next large town or city, and the choices in the cooler are less than optimal.
I found that some of the larger, newer truck stops offered a wide variety of food choices: grab-and-go salads or sandwiches, frozen food cases next to available microwave ovens. Or, if you brought freeze-dried noodles or soup, hot water is usually free. Some even had hot food options. On the East Coast, Wawa stores offer a a pretty decent menu, made to order. Various newer gas stations do the same. Rule of thumb seems to be, the newer stops have come to realize that offering quality food choices is a wise business decision.
Brew Pubs
The explosive growth of the brew pub and craft beer business has been accompanied with a greater emphasis on decent eats to accompany a cold pint of local IPA. As such, these places can often be counted on for decent salads, or at least hand-crafted burgers and veggie options. Stop in, order to go, and enjoy one of their liquid offerings while you wait for your meal. Enough said . . .
Local Food Shops and Restaurants
Using Google Maps, searching ahead for restaurants has never been easier. Cross-reference with Yelp if you need further assurance. If you’re on the road and in a hurry to get to your next stop, consider finding a restaurant online, perusing the menu, then call in your order twenty minutes ahead so that its waiting for you when you arrive. Remember to ask for utensils and napkins. No matter what, it sure beats Burger King.
We also had more than a few enjoyable stops at local lunch spots during our trip. One in particular, a soup and sandwich joint in Ellensburg, WA proved to offer a comfortable and homey respite from our drive between Spokane and Seattle. And the food was wonderful, their bathrooms spotless.
Cost Versus Quality
So did driving across the United States, down the West Coast, then back East again present some interesting challenges, food-wise? Absolutely. But the fact that we eschewed name-brand fast food for more local fare proved to make our trip just that much more enjoyable. Getting off the highway to look for places to eat in the many small towns or cities we encountered added immeasurably to our trip. It forced us to experience places much like the locals. And the process was fun, and colorful.
Was our experiment expensive? Kind of. Dropping in at a McDonald's for coffee served in styrofoam cups plus a couple of McMuffins is cheaper than hitting a local diner and faster than standing in line at the hotel breakfast bar or searching out an artisanal coffee roaster. But is it better? Not for us. In fact, our small children have since lost their taste for what used to be their favorite fast food choices, in favor of more adventurous fare. As lovers of fine food (we don’t consider ourselves particular enough to be called ‘foodies’), my wife and I were certainly and repeatedly surprised by great meals we would have never experienced if we hadn’t adhered to the “NO FAST FOOD” mandate.
All in all, our experiences certainly fall into the “priceless” column. We feel tremendously blessed. We also hope you enjoyed following along on our journey. If you have any comments or questions, feel free to drop us a line or include a comment.
To learn more about our thirty day adventure across America, check out our other publications WHERE DO WE FIT IN? and 30 CUPS ACROSS.
