We drove 1,500 miles to see the moon pass in front of the sun

On road trips and holiday food

Last month, Tilly had a birthday and to celebrate, we spent a lot of time in our minivan. Whoo, road trip! We drove to Albuquerque, New Mexico, so we could see an eclipse. And we stopped by Phoenix, Arizona on the way there, because the thought of driving straight from San Diego to Albuquerque (a twelve to thirteen hour drive) with the kids was a kind of torture we weren’t willing to endure. The trip was thus in three parts: Phoenix on the way there, Albuquerque, and Phoenix on the way home. Each part of the trip had delights and highlights and, of course, there was some memorable food we ate along the way. Before I get into that, though, the all important numbers: how much did we spend on food on our road trip? It was a one week trip (we left on a Wednesday morning and got home mid-afternoon the following Tuesday), and it included some pretty nice birthday meals. We spent $65.05 on ‘groceries’* and $754.40 on eating out, for a grand total of $819.45 (about $34.14 per person per day).

On the road I

There were some fascinating moments on our drive out. In Australia, there was a big public safety campaign years (decades?) ago called ‘stop, revive, survive’. It urged drivers to stop for rest breaks every couple of hours because (as I distinctly recall Dr Karl Kruszelnicki telling us in TV ads) ‘microsleeps can kill’. The phrase ‘stop, revive, survive’ is about as ingrained in me as the national anthem and the Vegemite jingle. Well, they don’t have ‘stop, revive, survive’ here but there was something similar — a sign saying ‘pause, rest, worship’. I’ve since learnt that the sign is at the site of a tiny church in Yuma, Arizona. I knew tiny houses were a thing, and apparently tiny chapels were too.

In the same area, we drove past what looked like farm fields. As we drove past those green fields in Arizona, I realised that my reaction to them was very different to when I drove past farm fields in Australia. In Australia, when I saw farms or fields, there was usually some positive or neutral emotion: ‘what a lovely pastoral scene’ or ‘cool, this is where our food comes from’. When I saw the farms in Arizona, I was thinking about what I’d read in Perilous Bounty by Tom Philpott about soil erosion, aquifers, watersheds, climate change, and how agriculture in California developed decades ago in a manner that isn’t going to be sustainable in the long term. We weren’t in California, or near the farms that Philpott wrote about, and maybe these farms we were driving past were wonderfully innovative and sustainable and it was contributing to a better climate and food system. But I couldn’t help but think, ‘We are in the middle of a desert. How is it so green? What is it costing for this field to be so green?’**

Phoenix I

When we were in Phoenix, we stayed with the parents of one of our friends, and it was fabulous. Our friend has kids about the same age as our kids, and staying with her parents was like staying at grandma’s house on steroids. Her mum is a former preschool director and is the most kid-person I’ve ever met. Our kids had a fantastic time there, with all the new and different toys and games, a grown-up who understood them on their level, and excellent bedtime stories (Mem Fox wrote about how you should read to children in Reading Magic and our friend’s mum embodies everything about a good children’s storyteller. I wish she could read to my kids every day). 

On this Phoenix stop, we went to a Culver’s for lunch. It was partly because it was convenient, and partly because I had read about the chain on Reddit but had never been to one. Apparently it’s known for its frozen custards and in threads about favourite fast food chains or best ‘something or others’ (Burgers? Desserts? I don’t remember), Culver’s often comes up. It was… fine? I had a grilled chicken sandwich, a few bites of Charlie’s burger, some of the chips/fries, and the frozen custard. It wasn’t the worst food I’ve eaten, but it wasn’t the best either. Underwhelming, I think, would be my best word to describe it, but that’s possibly because it was a little hyped up from Reddit comments. Maybe if you take expectations aside, it’s just whelming. Is ‘whelming’ even a word? 

Our next notable Phoenix stop was to Changing Hands, a magnificent indie bookshop and one of my bucket list items. Way back in 2008, I wrote my Honours thesis about independent bookshops in Sydney, and when that was over I thought one great way to travel the world would be to tour of all the great indie bookshops. I never officially went on that tour but in the past fifteen years have still managed to make my way to a number of fantastic ones. Changing Hands was on that list of great indie bookshops I wanted to visit and it was a delight to finally get to see it in person.

Dinner that night was with some friends at a bar/restaurant called The Porch, and the only reason I bring it up here is because I liked the wording of the kids menu. (The food was fine; the company was better.)

On the road II

And then onward to Albuquerque. It was a fine drive and the only reason this is even worth writing about is that I’m still amused by our stop at what might be loosely termed a coffee shop in the small town of Holbrook. We were a few hours into the drive, looking for a spot for caffeine and toilets, and Yelp reviews had favourable things to say about a cafe called Thanx-A-Latte. It was a cute name, and the few reviews indicated that there would be food, beverages, and toilets, so we stopped. We walked into what seemed like a large gift shop with a coffee counter at the front — there was a menu listing some different types of drinks, but not a whole lot else. The best part was the reaction of the proprietor of the shop: ‘What do you want?’ said with the air of a woman who absolutely did not expect customers at all and just wanted to go back to the friend she was chatting with. She was perfectly friendly and let us use what seemed to be the staff loo, but this was definitely not the coffee shop that Yelp led me to believe it was. 

Albuquerque

We stayed at Los Poblanos, a historic inn and organic farm. It was one of the nicest places I’ve ever stayed in and definitely the nicest place we’ve taken the kids to. Everything about this place was a highlight: the suite we stayed in, the farm itself, seeing the animals on the farm, the farm shop, the s’mores we made on our first night. But the highlight highlight was the restaurant, Campo, and the two meals that we ate there. We had dinner there on our first night, and the food was a hit with everyone at the table — I had lamb that was as good as lamb you’d find at a decent cafe or restaurant in Australia (this is rare; America is not a big lamb country), and Charlie polished off his spaghetti and meatballs (also rare; we took him to a pizza restaurant at a resort two years ago and he refused to eat the spaghetti and meatballs because they weren’t as good as the ones he gets at home).

Breakfast at Campo the following morning was similarly delicious. My husband and I shared the eggs benedict and crispy pork tacos, and the kids had pancakes. I think a big part of what made the food here so good was their sourcing of ingredients — they had a very farm to table ethos, and a lot of the ingredients were locally and organically grown and raised. I’ve learnt in the past couple of years that ingredients and where they come from matter a lot to taste, and this was very clearly reflected here. It made me wish that this restaurant was closer to home and not two states away.

Highlights of Albuquerque also included an annular solar eclipse (the main reason we went there), which was pretty awesome to see; a trip to Explora, a kids and science museum; and an attempt to see the Balloon Fiesta, the largest hot air balloon event in the world with 500 hot air balloons that gather for a weeklong festival. Note that I said ‘attempt’— we had tickets to the last day of the event, and spent a couple of hours in a very cold field, terrifically under-dressed because I’d packed for desert daytime temperatures and not desert 5am temperatures***. And then the balloons didn’t even launch because it was too windy. Before this trip, I didn’t know this event existed or that there were even gatherings of hot air balloons (someone from Los Poblanos called about two weeks before the trip to confirm our reservation. She asked if we were visiting Albuquerque for the Balloon Fiesta to which I replied, ‘What Balloon Fiesta?’). But now that I know that it exists and we were so close to seeing a mass ascension of hundreds of hot air balloons, I really want to go back and see it. And there I was thinking this was a one-time trip to Albuquerque. 

On the road III

We drove back to Phoenix after the failed and very cold attempt to see a lot of hot air balloons, and this drive gets a mention partly because of our stop at Gallup Coffee Company, which was a lovely little coffee shop but mostly because I am still wondering if the city of Gallup has anything to do with Gallup, the polling company. Oh, and in writing this paragraph I looked it up and found that Gallup the polling company (management consulting company, actually) was founded by George Gallup in 1935. Gallup the city in New Mexico was founded in 1881 and named after David Gallup, a paymaster for the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad. I guess the Gallup poll and the city we drove through are completely unrelated, then.

Phoenix II

Back to Phoenix, and back to our friend’s parents house. This leg of the trip had two highlights: a visit to the Children’s Museum of Phoenix, and a behind-the-scenes tour of a small commercial bakery.

We went to the Children’s museum mostly because they had a Mo Willems exhibit which was awesome. We love his books, and it was fabulous to see so many elements of his books come to life. Then there was the added bonus of the museum being wonderful in so many other ways, with a huge variety of ways for kids to explore, pretend, play, and engage in all the best parts of being a kid. It was the best children’s museum I’ve been to and I would happily go back. 

My friend’s family owns a small bakery (they sell bread wholesale to local restaurants and there is also a small retail side of the business), and her dad took us to the bakery where the bread was made. That was a lot of fun, to see mixers as tall as the children and all the different components of a commercial bakery. There’s a book we’ve read often, Lunchbox: The Story of Your Food by Chris Butterworth, that describes how bread is made in a commercial bakery and while the illustrations in the book are lovely, seeing it for real life was even better.

Dinner on our last night in Phoenix was one of my unexpected food highlights of the trip. We went to Pita Jungle, a Mediterranean restaurant that was excellent. We have a few Mediterranean restaurants and chains in San Diego, and I would happily swap them all for a Pita Jungle. The roasted vegetable salad with salmon that I ate was delicious and I would eat there tonight if I could. 

On the road IV

And then we were homeward bound. We stopped at various places to pee (sometimes there was a toilet, sometimes it was just the side of the road), we returned to the same In-N-Out that we stopped at on our way to Phoenix six days earlier, and we made it home without a single potty accident or anyone vomiting. Success.

*I use the term ‘groceries’ loosely. Most of the groceries we bought on the trip were just car snacks.

**I recognise that my view of farming and agriculture in Australia and the US is quite lopsided. This is not because I think farming and agriculture in Australia is done perfectly, but because I haven’t read about it in the same way as I’ve read about farming and agriculture in the US. There are great farms and farmers in the US, but I can’t help but think about books like Perilous Bounty and Fresh Fruit, Broken Bodies.

***Not only did I not pack sufficiently warm clothing for us for the Balloon Fiesta, I also forgot to pack shirts for Charlie for the entire trip. Luckily, thrift stores saved the day and he was clothed.