Burgers in the Car

Last night, we drove to Ithaca, a close to five hour drive, after a full day of work and school.  Thankfully, my husband ended up doing all the driving, because, though I was raring to go at the beginning, it was all I could do to stay awake by the time we arrived close to midnight.

My kids are good travelers, pretty much always have been, and this time, given our late departure and the length of the trip, we gave them a treat they've never gotten on a road trip--dinner eaten in the car.  I ran in and picked up burgers, nuggets, fries and lemonade, and we were off, my husband (who is usually rabidly against eating in the car) munching his burger as he drove, and the kids managing to eat their nuggets and fries ketchup-less (we drew the line there) and with virtually no mess.  As for me, I passed up my usual fast food salad or baked potato (too messy for car eating) and went with a mushroom Swiss burger, which was amazingly satisfying.  The whole thing was actually a lot of fun.

Will this change the way we travel in the future?  I doubt it.  Too many meals in the car would probably be no more good for our digestion than it would be for the smell of the car.  And normally, we travel when we have time to get where we're getting, so burgers in the car is unlikely to be a necessary thing very often.  When my kids lobby to do it again (as I feel fairly sure they will), I will explain it this way-- 

Sometimes in life, when circumstances are not exactly how we'd like them to be, we are called upon to make adjustments.  And, as far as I can tell, the people who succeed in life are not necessarily the smartest or the strongest, but those who are adaptable, who make lemonade out of proverbial lemons, who spend less time fighting about "what should be" and more time making "what can be" happen.

Tomorrow, we'll be driving home from Ithaca, at an hour when eating along the way won't even be necessary.  So definitely no burgers in the car, but hopefully a new-found appreciation for the fact that, if we try, there are all sorts of things we can do along the way to turn our lemons into lemonade (and have a lot of fun while we're at it).