Chapter 4: Managing the Mental Load, Food Edition
By now you may be wondering why I am so ambivalent about this trip. It’s because my children expect me to know everything. It’s true. I really do know lots of things. I know lots about pirates, I can tell you the name of a popular song with just a few bars of the intro, I can spell almost any word presented to me, and I can always tell the difference between their underwear.
None of this matters when it comes to this trip.
That’s because I don’t know the answer to these inevitable questions:
1. What’s for dinner?
2. Why do I have to walk there?
3. Why isn’t the WIFI working?
4. Are we there yet?
5. (2 minutes later) How much longer to go?
6. Why isn’t there anything to eat?
7. Why aren’t we there yet?
You get the picture. Now these questions are never directed to their father. I may re-direct them TO him but he is never, ever, EVER asked them directly if I am there.
Don’t get me wrong, when we’re out on the road, T will absolutely carry his share of this load. But before then, he works a busy full-time job until a few weeks before we leave.
The challenge for me is how to make this trip feel like a holiday for me and not just a test of endurance. The answer? I’m going to plan as much as I possibly can.
If I can make it so that I have an answer to as many of these questions as often as possible then perhaps there is a chance I get a bit of a break too.
I know. It’s a gamble because they’ll think of new questions. It also means a significant increase in my mental load without any indication all this investment of energy is going to pay off. But I figure planning will help me do something practical to reduce on-road anxiety and not turn into the homicidal maniac I occasionally feel brewing in my perimenopausal body.
I decide to start with the easy part… the food. How hard can it be?
Food prep is the answer
YouTube is my best friend here. It seems every person who has ever done any kind of road trip anywhere has their own YouTube channel. They are all unnaturally optimistic people with a hint of desperation in their pleas for likes and subscribes. BUT sometimes they have useful experiences once you get past all the commercial enthusiasm.
I watch enough awkward #vanlife youtube videos to learn two important pieces of information about food and kids:
1. Prepare as much food as possible beforehand; and
2. Vacuum sealing is your best friend.
I visit Amazon and order myself a $50 vacuum sealing machine that promises to make fresh your food smarter. While I wait for it to arrive from the factory in China, I start contemplating how much space I may have to store food in the Campervan.
The Britz people have a video tour of our van but it only shows empty cupboards and spaces. Another YouTube #vanlife person does a tour of her Britz van. Unfortunately, it looks like she literally threw everything into it, she stands in front of the spaces I want to see, and she rambles on about how great it all is.
I briefly ponder whether I have to start my own YouTube channel for people who just want information instead of a life story. I guess this is how they get you in.
I decide to start with my best friend. It’s time to break out my trusty food dehydrator. I figure getting food as small, flat and dry as possible can only help.
42 nights = 42 dinners
Next, I canvas the family for meal ideas.
“What meals do we eat now that we can take with us?” I ask them. “Dad’s spaghetti,” says G. “Dad’s chilli,” says A. “Anything that I might make?” I ask hopefully. They look at me blankly. Apparently not.
T and I talk it over and decide that financially, we will aim for one take-away dinner a week. The rest of the time, we’ll try and keep it simple, with standard pot meals of pasta and rice, and BBQs with salads.
I start by drying out spaghetti sauce into roll-ups. I don’t tell anyone it’s not T’s sauce. Then I buy masses of low-fat beef mince and start drying that too. This involves mixing it with breadcrumbs, cooking it as thoroughly as possible, and putting it on high in the dehydrator for around 6 hours.
When it’s done, I fluff around trying to get the new cryovac machine to work so I can package it. I fail miserably. T gets home and sorts it out in 30 seconds. Around six spaghetti meals are shrunk into a flat plastic bag the size of a book.
It works beautifully.
I’m feeling enthused that I may just pull this off. I turn my attention to non-dinner meals. A roadblock is thrown up almost immediately.
- Australia’s states have restrictions on the transportation of certain fresh fruit and vegetables across its borders; and
2. The bloody Campervan does not have a BBQ.
Bugger.
