One of our philosophies when traveling is that if you look hard enough, you can find good local food for similar prices to what you’d pay at McDonalds. Never a fan of fast food, I found that on road trips, it seemed to escalate any and all issues we would be having in the car. Not only did the extra preservatives, calories and fat make us all feel “off,” any time saved by using a drive-thru was off set by cleaning the car and kids’ clothing when we stopped for the night.
Bret and I love watching the Food Network and became fans of the show Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives. It was with that idea that we started seeking out local places to eat. In fact, much of this first trip, all stops were planned around which of the show’s featured restaurants we could see. Since then, we’ve picked up many great resources for local restaurants and can find them in most places we drive through. Some of most memorable vacation moments have been at restaurants where we were the only tourists, like the time we were in Winslow, Arizona at Casa Blanca and everyone in the restaurant was local and Hispanic. Our light skinned, red heads certainly stood out! We were handed menus that we could barely read and McGyver, with his most bold, adventurous voice pointed to something on the menu and said, “I want THAT! I have no idea what it is, but I want to try it!” The waitress was smitten. We had so much fun that night that I doubt any of us will ever forget it.
