Long trips

I wrote this a couple of months ago right after visiting my Mother who lives over 800 miles from us for 2 weeks. I drove each way, spending one night in a hotel, with my 2 GAPS kids (aged 12 & 10) and my adult daughters (not on GAPS). I realized today that if I wait until the grammar, etc. is just right I will never post. Go ahead and ask if something just doesn't make sense.

Overall, things went very well. My planning included 2 coolers, one for using while traveling, the other for the stop in the hotel room. We packed cooked roast, cooked vegetables, cooked and frozen sausage patties, sauerkraut, pickles, yogurt, pumpkin seeds, nut butter pancakes and for the trip up - vegetable soup, frozen. My mother had called asking how I made my broth and prepared some in advance so I didn’t need to pack more broth, though there would have been room for a at least a quart if it had been necessary. My daughters also packed some snack food for themselves and myself - primarily foods the boys never really liked before GAPS (yogurt cups, tortilla wraps). We brought along a crock pot, electric skillet and hot pot. I only used the crock pot, though, as the boys were quite happy eating the meat and veggies cold and didn’t want to wait.

I discovered that with a quality cooler and ice pack, freezing the soup not only wasn’t necessary, it was a liability. It took forever to thaw the soup so I was very glad I had packed lots of meat and veggies, since they got the soup for breakfast instead of supper! As I type this up, it occurs to me I could have thawed/heated the soup more quickly in the electric skillet, but at the time, tired from driving my brain just didn’t go there. I went through a drive thru for the girls and I (the first time the boys have been in the car when someone did that in a year!) since we were running late. I ordered a fruit salad (apple slices and grapes w/ yogurt) and they got fruit (a treat for them) while the girls had the yogurt so they didn’t mind us having things they couldn’t.

We stayed at a hotel with a refrigerator so everything would stay cold without having to get a lot of ice. I don’t like ice in coolers because the bag always seems to leak and there is water everywhere. Since the girls and I are not doing GAPS we also chose a hotel with free breakfast. We took turns going to the lobby for our breakfasts (a bit heavy on carbs for me, but the girls were thrilled with stuff we do not have in our house). I had parked near the back entrance, so the boys ate in the hotel room and were never near the lobby.

While we were traveling the boys got their soup/broth morning and evening instead of through the day. They probably got a bit less than usual, but overall I was very happy with our travel. As they have gotten older they need fewer stops for running around so we mostly just ate in the car and kept going. I was very glad to have meals waiting when I arrived. I am blessed with family who are willing to help out and ask how to prepare meals. For our trip home Robert called to get instructions for cooking a roast in the crock pot since he knew we would all be tired.