What is it about traveling that makes us think calories don’t count? We are en route to New Haven, Connecticut for our oldest son’s graduation from Yale. We are quite proud indeed.
When I am on a road trip, I find myself eating things that I would never (or rarely) eat at home.
Our first stop was when we were still in our city. On the way to the highway, we went to Panera for lunch. I got a healthy big salad, with apple, not baguette. Good choice.
Once I leave my own town, game’s on. I sense a food freedom.
By Wheeling, West Virginia, I was eating chicken nuggets doused in sweet and sour sauce and drinking oh so sugary raspberry lemonade.
In New Bedford, Pennsylvania, we stopped at one of those center island one-stop-shopping places on the Pennsylvania turnpike. It was a beautiful building; large gray stone with white trim and white railings. We filled the car with gas and purchased a large cup of deep fried dough balls, rolled in cinnamon and sugar.
We have now checked into a nice hotel outside Harrisburg. It is late but I made a cup of hot green tea in the hotel lobby and we shared a cinnamon roll that we warmed in the small microwave in our room.
The framed pictures on the wall in our room are advertising everything Hershey, PA, which makes me crave chocolate. Sigh.
Tomorrow I will do better. Boiled eggs for breakfast, sans bacon and biscuits. Grab a few pieces of fruit from the hotel breakfast bar and I’ll be good to go.
If I can avoid the always tempting packages of caramel cremes and bags of salty Funyuns, I will make it to New Haven in time for something really healthy, like a large New York style pizza with everything.
Eating on the road is certainly not a calorie-free zone. And once in a while that is okay. We are on a celebration trip. When I get home, I will get back onto the healthy eating train.
When you are 60 years old, that train takes a little longer to board but the trip is always worth it.