Napkins

I have this wad of paper napkins in the door of the van: McDonalds. TacoBell…has to be a couple dozen of them from the trip. You get your disposable food in a disposable bag and they throw in a score of disposable napkins, enough to soak up what remains of the Red Sea. Those napkins led me to a realization, a possibly life changing one.

We all have patterns on long trips: Music playlists. Games we play to keep our mind occupied. Places we stop. Food and drink we consume. On long road trips I get four double cheeseburgers from McDonalds with a side order of coffee if I’m tired. Unlike a Quarter Pounder or a Big Mac the cheeseburgers are easy to eat while you drive. Ten minutes and I have my food and am on the road again, back on the interstate going seventy and trying not to drop pickles on my lap. This is my road trip pattern.

I got McDonalds in Gorman and Weed, California, Portland and Scappose, Oregon. Double cheeseburgers. Sausage McMuffins with egg. Familiar, comfort food. When I was growing up I very rarely had fast food, it was the forbidden fruit. Even as an adult I only have it on road trips; two thousand miles, a door full of paper napkins. This morning I camped in the mountains east of Clear Lake, California. I was curious about whatever Taco Bell served for breakfast so I drove to the nearest town (Williams) to indulge my curiosity. Okay, first observation: It should be illegal to serve breakfast without coffee. Illegal. I got my two potato breakfast burritos and breakfast Crunchwrap Supreme and then picked up coffee from the AM-PM across the road. Ten minutes, and then I was driving again eating food off my lap and trying not to drop potatoes between the seats where I will never find them. Second observation: Taco Bell breakfast food is weird, there are “sweet notes” that don’t belong in Taco Bell food. Third observation: It seemed gross. I am not singling out Taco Bell, but suddenly fast food just seemed…gross. Disposable food, lowest co-denominator food, only tasty because of the Flavor Industry, sorta like those Tik Tok filters that even make hideous people attractive. Cardboard food microwaved by bored teenagers.

And what was this with eating while driving? I have engineered my life to take my time, to slow down, to support local businesses. My hitting the Taco Bell or the McDonalds drive through no longer made any sense.

I got napkins at a local place in Coos Bay, City Sandwiches. Craving deli sandwiches, I went on Google and checked reviews for sandwich places in Coos Bay. This is what we do now, right? We crave some type of food and we Google what restaurants have the highest ratings for Mexican or sandwiches or Thai or whatever.

And I think we’ve lost something…some sense of adventure.

Back in the olden days, you just stopped at whatever restaurant. You had to be brave, be a bit cavalier with your personal digestive safety because there were no Google or Yelp reviews. That joint may give you food poisoning or it may be the best meal you ever had on that highway. The waitress may have serious personal hygeine issues or they might change your life with an observation.

Maybe we need to go back to that.

At the very least I am thinking that I'm done with fast food. Yeah, on road trips it might save an hour here and there but…

What am I missing? What are we missing by always playing it safe? Napkins, I guess. Lots and lots of napkins.

Just a reminder: I now have three non-fiction books on Amazon under the American Outback “umbrella”: Disappearing is a Young Man’s Game is about what led me to live out of a van. No Signal is about my first year living out of my converted van. Where the Fires Are is about my first season as a campground host.

https://www.amazon.com/~/e/B00EG7OKUY

Thanks for being here,

Izaak