The Food & What I learned

My parents bought all our food as we were traveling across the country.  It would take four days to drive from Oneonta, New York to Kaysville, UT.  Every morning my dad would get out the Coleman Stove, and cook eggs and bacon.  We would also have cold cereal.  This was a real treat because we never had cold cereal at home.  Often we would get the cereal in the little rectangular prism boxes.  We would be able to eat it right from the box.  Another treat was milk!  When we traveled across the country, we had store bought milk.  So, so much better than powdered milk.  We loved the taste of the cold, but not very cold milk in paper cups.  For lunch, we would stop at a rest stop.  I remember Nebraska had the best rest stops.  They had fun places to explore, clean bathrooms, and we got to eat at picnic tables and eat our lunch. We mostly had sandwiches. Usually we would be at the campsite for dinner.  I can't remember the menu for dinner, but I didn't really like food back then.  We could play on the campground swingsets, sometimes evey go swimming, and of course, sleep in the tents.  Two people would also sleep in the car, on the platform bed. Now my memory might be faulty here, but it seemed to be Anne and Jennie that always slept in the car.  Not that I minded, I loved sleeping in the tent.  We always had a food box underneath the platform with perishable items.  Sometimes we would also get fig newtons.  We hardly ever had store bought cookies at our home.  Fig newtons weren't a treat for me, but my dad loved them! When it was really hot, we would go into a McDonalds for ice cream and try to cool down.  We would go to Ponderosa as our last meal on the way home.  I am sure my parents needed it more than we did.

I was just thinking about what these trips taught me:

1. Family was very important!  My parents saved for these trips across the country, and worked really hard so they could do it in the most economical manner possible. 
2. Even when things can be really stressful for parents (i.e. a car breaking down) it can be a great memory for kids.  i.e.: being able to watch movies at the Independance visitor center.  Seriously, the trip wouldn't have been as much fun for me if the car had worked!
3. Enjoy the journey: my parents always would stop at different places and take different routes to see different parts of the country.  We saw Niagra Falls, Yellowstone Nationale Park, Tetons, Mount Rushmore, Badlands, Nauvoo, and Indendance, MO.
4. You don't need electronics to stay entertained in the car.  We would do the alphabet game, hypnotize each other, read, and use our imaginations.  We learned how to read maps, navigate, and learned the order of the states as we crossed through each one.
5. My favorite part of the trip was playing and being with my Hollist cousins for an entire summer!  We had such a great time.  In the Rushforth's basement, we played murder in the dark and blinds man bluff for an entire summer.  At my grandmother's house, we would play in the irrigation ditches, pick fruit, make fruit leather, put on plays, go into the closet closet for our club meetings.  It was at my grandmother's house that I first learned about my long lost brother George.  He was even older than Kevin!