Memorial Day Weekend and the First Car Trip of the Summer

Memorial Day weekend is not a holiday to me, it is a test. It is the first time the whole family gets in the car for more than an hour, and everything I thought I had organized gets re-evaluated by four people who are hungry at different times.

The first year I packed a cooler. The second year I packed a cooler. This year I am not packing a cooler, and the reason is that a cooler is a promise that the food inside it is cold, and a cooler in a car for six hours is a promise that nobody keeps. It turns into a bag of lukewarm water with a lid.

What I Pack Instead

Freeze-dried food is the answer here and I am aware that I sound like a person selling something, so let me be specific about why. It weighs nothing, it does not care about the temperature, it does not leak, and it does not need to be kept cold. A bag of freeze-dried strawberries takes up the space of a sandwich and weighs less than the sandwich wrapper.

The thing that changed my mind was a trip where I brought a cooler and also brought a bag of freeze-dried bananas, and by hour three the family had eaten all the freeze-dried bananas and the cooler was still shut. Nobody wants the cold sandwich. Everybody wants the thing that crunches.

The Rule That Actually Works

I pack one thing per person per hour of driving, and I pack it where they can reach it. That second part is the part people skip. If the snacks are in the trunk, they do not exist. If they are in a bag between the seats, they get eaten at the correct rate and nobody asks for anything.

I also pack the thing I do not want them to eat first, and I put it in the bag last, because it will get eaten first if I put it in first. This is not a strategy, it is just an observation about how children work.

What I Stopped Packing

I stopped packing drinks. This was the biggest win and the hardest one to admit. A full cooler of drinks is heavy, it sweats, it spills, and the entire family will stop at a gas station in forty minutes anyway because somebody needs a bathroom. I pack one water bottle each and buy the rest when we stop. The car is lighter, the trash is less, and nobody cares.

I also stopped packing anything that needs a spoon. A spoon is a thing that gets lost, gets sticky, and gets complained about. Everything in the bag should be eatable with a hand.

The whole system now fits in one grocery bag and weighs less than the cooler did. That is the version I am keeping.

Stay curious. Stay crunchy. Stay cosmic.

— Sara Jane Shelvock, CEO, Torus Coffee Company LLC