Travel Tip: Always bring aluminum foil.

We thought we were sooo smart and prepared, bringing my granpa’s old camping stove.

We would’ve been smarter and more prepared if we had stopped to figure out if it worked, first.

As is, we were in the woods, trying to get this stove to start around lunch time. We were hungry and got tired of fooling with it, so we just went up to the Big Meadows Wayside to get lunch. I ordered a veggie burger and a side salad. It was excellent! Much better than fighting with a stove or trying to start a fire.

Unfortunately, dinner time rolled around and we still didn’t have a working stove. Kristina started building a fire and I started thinking of back up plans.

I struggled to remember the various non-stove recipes I’d seen on Pinterest (there was no cell service, so there was no quick Google-ing). I finally recalled a tutorial on cooking in foil packets that I’d seen (it was this one). 

Luckily, right before we left, I had thrown aluminum foil in the car. I grabbed that and then went through the cooler and found salsa, black beans, and smoked sausage. We cut up a bit of onion and threw it in foil, then tossed it on the fire. When we (carefully) pulled it off the fire, we sprinkled some cheese on top. Honestly? It wasn’t bad.  It was definitely better than going hungry or buying more expensive food from the wayside.

Thank God for Pinterest.

Travel Tips: Leave early, pack healthy snacks, and bring allllll of the audio books.

I’m not sure I have the proper temperament for road trips. I have a tendency to be impatient and a bit anxious. Particularly when faced with unpredictable traffic. The first leg of our trip took us from Conway, AR to Nashville, TN. According to my lovely navigation device, this is a 5 ½ hour drive. I planned accordingly. We left Conway around 4, which was perfect.

But of course, road trip law dictates that nothing can be perfect. Around middle-of-nowhere between Little Rock and Memphis, we ran into some absolutely hellacious roadwork. The parked on the road for an hour and a half variety. I finally wised up and took the next exit onto Highway 70. Thank the lord for the highways.

I don’t know about you, but on trips with annoyingly long delays, I kind of just want to eat junk food the entire time. Luckily, thanks to some foresight and well stocked healthy snacks, like bananas and granola bars, clean eating is still going as planned. Friday night, we stayed with my cousin Mike, who sent us on our way with lunch for the road and snackage on Saturday.

Audiobooks made that extra-long day of driving bearable though. I’m nowhere near talkative enough to fill 7+ hours of driving. We listened to A Study in Emerald by Neil Gaiman and Louis C.K.’s routines, Hilarious and Chewed Up. For the Saturday trip, I turned on Princess of Mars. I love music, and have a road trip playlist all prepped, but the stories absolutely helped pass the time.

Even with all of the traffic and delays though, it’s been a really nice drive. Arkansas and Tennessee are beautiful states. Once we crossed into Tennessee, there were rest stops located about every 60 miles along the interstate. It’s also been nice and sunny! Unfortunately, the weather predicts rain for the next couple of days. Guess we’ll see how that goes!!

Travel Writing

I haven't used this blog since I was about 16 (I've been blogging over at Help Ever, Hurt Never), but I plan to use it for my travel writing experiment this summer.

I'm a professional writing major. UCA has offered a travel writing seminar in the past, but hasn't listed it for the upcoming year. I've taken matters into my own hands and applied for a Travel Abroad Grant from the Norbert O. Schedler Honors College. Kristina and I will be traveling for about three weeks, stopping in five different places. We'll be camping some times and staying in hostels others. 

Two young women traveling the East coast alone for a month out of the summer? I imagine we'll have some stories. Even better, I'm a bit prissy about my sleeping arrangements and haven't been camping since I was about 10 and in Girl Scouts. And did I mention I'm really in to clean eating?

While researching our destinations for the trip, I realized it's kind of hard to find relatively easy, clean eating recipes that can be done over a campfire. Even harder? Planning yoga that I can do in a hostel.

My goal for this blog is that I'll show other students that great trips can be pulled off for relatively low cost if you put a little work into it! The hostels? They're about $30 a night, per person, if you hunt out the low cost establishment. How clean/comfortable are they? I'll let you know!