When I first started musing about having an ongoing Weekend 34 Road Trip conversation, I bounced a lot of ideas off RadioNemo Associate Producer Tarrah Garis. We take a lot of broadcasting trips together, and on occasion, we spend extended periods driving to our destination and talking programming. On our way to Indianapolis to cover the NTDC, Tarrah pointed out to me that no discussion of a road trip would be complete without including the “gas station purchase.”
That’s exactly what you think it is: the food and beverages you grab at the gas station to snack on when covering extended terrain.
I don’t mean a Snickers and Coke, or in my case iced coffee and a bear claw from Panera, to tide you over while you make the drive to Baton Rouge from New Orleans in just under an hour.
We’re talking about bags within bags. The supersized package filled with your favorite candy to perpetually pop in your mouth, the savory crunchies you polish off and finish by licking your fingers, the massive container of sliced fresh fruit to boost your vitamin C, and the health halo protein bursts contained in jerky, health bars, or cheese wrapped prosciutto. After all, one of the best ways not to get mixed up on the trail is to have a handy helping of trail mix.
And don’t tell me you get “whatever.” You know exactly what is going to be in the stash under the dash.
That is going to be the topic of discussion this Saturday as Lindsay Lawler and I renew our professional road trip on Dave Nemo Weekends. As many of you know by now, Lindsay graciously took a step back from the show while Dave Nemo and I took care of some business matters at RadioNemo of North America. She returns as we restart our conversation about where we would go and why we would go there if we were able to take a two week road trip anywhere in the continental United States.
She also returns to us with her role expanded to include a larger presence during the week and on social media. I’ll write about that increased presence when we get to our friendship and playlist shows, but for now, a show about choosing snacks while on the road seemed an easy way back on the air with the whole team getting ready to go to Dallas on Sunday for Women In Trucking’s Accelerate Conference.
As a road trip snacker, I have two distinctive periods as a purchaser of bags of goodies. When I first was able to hit the road on my own as a young man, I snacked on a mixture of newly found freedom and nostalgia.
Raspberry coconut Zingers, a roll of SweeTarts, a fountain Coke, grab one (okay, two) counter doughnuts, Big League Chew, and either a bag of Funyuns or Chili Cheese Fritos were all part of the equation. And I mean all of them. If the trip was over five hours, it was happening. All of those aforementioned items were things that I loved as a kid (except the flavored Fritos, which were a later innovation) and each one had a taste that reminded me of something special from my life.
Let me make something clear: none of this was my parents’ doing. There was never a time as a kid that I ever had enough money on me to purchase that entire murderers row of garbola nor would my parents have ever considered doing it for me. A manically-twitching, obese child with tooth decay was never part of their plans. By the way, if it is part of your plans, let me know, so I can call social services.
If I ever got any of those treats, it was always just one, and it was on special occasions. I did not grow up in a time when Walmart, Target, and Costco had bags of this stuff so big that it could stop the flow of water through a breached levee.
I had to wait until I owned a car, had something akin to a disposable income, and was headed toward a destination that allowed me the time to feel justified in engaging in that sort of reckless dopamine-inducing bender. In short, I had to have the independence to make stupid choices and win stupid prizes.
That burgeoning bag of junk food is a false signifier of freedom for taking to the road. Think about what a road trip means in your youth. Going somewhere on the road with your whole life ahead of you is a heady feeling of independence. All those things you always wanted to do as a kid are suddenly possible, and the dream of finally being able to eat all the stuff you want when you want is intoxicating.
No, it really is intoxicating. Enough sugar can have you seeing the Lucky Charms’ Leprechaun as your copilot. That’s a bad scene. He never stops talking, and despite promising the pot of gold is at the next exit, he never delivers. I am starting to think he took that trip to get away from some gambling debts. And the dude drinks too much of this stuff.
Basically, a road trip means you're free to do what you want any ol’ time. Going where you want, to do what you want, to become who you want is what it means to be young. It is very easy to confuse that feeling with the food you put in your mouth.
It’s over now. My combination of wanting to live a long life in the company of the people I love has combined with a miraculous change in my taste buds. That dream team of the traveling treats revealed itself with the passage of time. Zingers are goopy sponges filled with whipped sugar, Sweet Tarts are saccharine chalk pellets, Funyuns are onion powder dusted styrofoam, Fritos are actually flammable, and I have no more desire to drink a can of Coke than to down a bottle of generic grocery store pancake syrup.
In other words, say goodbye to all of that. But the first time was glorious.
An unsweetened ice coffee, a bottle of alkaline water with electrolytes, and a perfectly ripe banana will have to suffice. Once in a while, a bag of not so lightly salted popcorn makes its way into my car, but it often ends up tossed out half-full by journey’s end. Although, when I ride with Tarrah, there are a few things in her gas station purchase that might be worth trying out.
Notice, I did leave the doughnuts out. They’re still there. They find their way into my kitchen after Sunday’s show and can only be purchased after a long walk up a hill. Those don’t come from a gas station and are made fresh every morning. If you’re going to eat stuff really bad for you, make sure it's genuinely delicious as opposed to the “magically delicious” riboflavin gassed marbits on a circular rack at the truckstop.
So, when you take your road trip, are you choosing the once or future snack?