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Dear readers,

The traditional season of road-tripping winds down in these last days of August, but a few of us latecomers are just starting out. When I take off this weekend, I’m looking forward to a good audio book, a firsthand view of some of the fires that have wreaked havoc out here in the West, and maybe a swim in the river along the way.

I’ll probably seek out one of my lifelong guilty pleasures too: soft-serve ice cream.

But I’m lucky: I won’t have to rely on a lot of fast food for my all-day journey. Instead I’ll stash a few things in a cooler to stave off my hunger, and in the afternoon I’ll stop for a plump tamale at the place in eastern Washington where we always stop. By the time we arrive at my parents’ place, I’ll be ready for dinner.

Recently, when my colleague Caroline Cummins tried to procure travel snacks for her preschool-aged children in rural North Carolina, she had to scramble a little more than she’s used to doing at home, and even then she was frustrated with the choices she found. It wasn’t impossible to find food she wanted to feed the kids, but it wasn’t easy either. There weren’t a lot of choices.

Years ago, I composed a small accordian-style book about the Oregon Trail, and at the time I remember being awestruck by some of the travel stories I read in my research. While we have it pretty good compared to the trail-goers 170 years ago — when a typical meal consisted of “fried cakes” and a pot of baked beans with a bit of bacon — road food can still require some planning.

Kim Carlson
Editorial Director