My husband and I took a road trip over Labor Day weekend, but not to relax and have fun.  Nope – haven’t had a relaxing vacation at all this year (gotta get that second mortgage paid off).  It was because one of our sons needed help moving for the second time in two months (broke his hand, has to work part-time until cast is off, and couldn’t afford the rent where he was living).

The drive is nearly 6 hours one way and I get really bored when traveling in a vehicle that I’m not driving.

I did plan ahead.  I took snacks of apples, bananas, grapes, and almonds along with lots of bottled water to help me resist the temptations of all the delicious looking junk food inside the gas stations.  (If you’re thinking that I should just not go inside gas stations while traveling then I would wonder where you think I’m supposed to go to the bathroom because drinking all that water means bathroom breaks every hour and there are too few rest stops along the highway and no – the bushes are not an acceptable substitute).

I did pretty good on the way to Minneapolis.  I resisted everything junky except for my husband’s Charleston Chew and I only took 2 small bites of it.  And it was hard to be strong because my husband loaded up on convenience store breakfast sandwiches, donuts, and candy.

But before you think I managed a 6 hour road trip on two bites of Charleston Chew, let me set the record straight.  Instead I consumed enough fruit to turn into one myself (several apples, a couple pounds of red grapes, and a banana).  It wasn’t that I was craving lots of fruit. I was bored and was tired of looking at the scenery out the window after 10 minutes.  I did manage to carry on a conversation with my husband for about 30 minutes to distract myself (translation: I talked for 30 minutes because my husband thinks that nodding his head and saying “okay” and “yes” every couple of minutes constitutes a conversation) but then I couldn’t think of anything else to say (kind of strange because I’m a pretty good talker and can babble on for quite some time).

I ate a lot because I wanted something to do and activity choices inside a moving vehicle are pretty limited.  Reading while driving gives me a headache and ditto for knitting, writing, playing handheld video games, and watching movies on a portable DVD player (I’ve tried them all).

The return trip was a junk food laden pig-out fest.  I forgot to restock my healthy snacks while in the city and wasn’t able to muster up the resolve to say “no” to the junky food in the gas station convenience stores although I did pretend to make an effort by looking for fruits and veggies but they had the limpest and most dismal fruit I’ve ever seen in those convenience stores (or maybe that’s just what I wanted to think).

I didn’t even have anything in the emergency stash I like to keep in my vehicle for occasions where I want to eat but don’t want to eat unhealthy food.  I had eaten that all up and had forgot to restock it.  The only thing I found while rooting around in my vehicle for something to eat was a stale almond that I must have dropped on an undetermined earlier date (must have been a while because it was very chewy instead of crunchy – yes it was kind of gross but I didn’t think twice about popping it into my mouth).

I should have insisted we find a grocery store so I could have gotten some healthy food but I didn’t.  I was tired, not in the mood for 6 hours in the car, and didn’t care.

I won’t go into the ugly depressing details but I did purchase at least one (okay, it was never just one) unhealthy and fattening snack at every bathroom stop on the way home (5 of them).  I’d like to forget the whole experience but the handful of empty wrappers in the garbage can and the unpleasant number on the bathroom scale this morning won’t let me.

So here’s one more opportunity for me to learn from.  Onward and forward, right?

Related posts:

1. Dealing With Adversity Without Turning To Food