Preparing for a Road Trip

[Gloria]

Day 2:

I discovered another packing glitch today. This time I think I picked the wrong item. I buy natural turkey lunch meat and a thick slice for soup cubes from a local store. I thought I picked the lunch meat, but instead picked the thick slice. When I saw that I didn't have my lunch meat, I lost it and started crying. I only have three options for lunch: soup, turkey or tuna sandwich and rice cake. I started feeling like I was a real drag to have on a vacation - and I guess I am with this disease. DH didn't quite know what to do because I usually am a strong person. I regrouped pretty quickly and decided that I would try to slice the thick meat in half. It worked and I was able to make my sandwich.

We found an organic grocer tonight (it took a bit of time), and I was able to buy some bread and Almond milk, but the lunch meat was from Applegate and had carregeenan in it. I'm hoping the turkey meat I have left will last. I bought some broccoli and cooked it in the microwave in our hotel room. I'm planning on eating soup tomorrow at a library. I went there today. They have a microwave, so I'll just add Kitchen Basics soup broth, some leftover rice from P.F. Changs (we ate there tonight) and a small can of chicken that I brought from home.

I learned my lesson about searching for a restaurant, so I looked up the nearest P.F. Changs on the Internet last night. We also bought a compass for our windshield tonight. I forgot how stressful it is to navigate in strange cities.

The hotel has a decent free breakfast. DH enjoyed eggs and sausage and I ate a waffle and maple syrup that I brought from home. I also tried a sausage - a potential land mine. Tomorrow will tell.

I refilled my Rubbermaid drink containers with the Almond milk tonight. I need to plan where we'll be eating tomorrow night. I've learned that planning ahead is critical when traveling with this disease.

Gloria

[Carole]

Wow - you're a great organizer. i don't doubt that with all your planning and your knowledge of which foods to eat that you'll do great on your trip. Have great time - and thanks again for all of your wonderful replys to my myriad of queries.

Carole

[Gas Bag]

Gloria you are a real trooper, I admire you greatly.
Continued good luck and fun on your adventure. Fingers crossed on the out-come of the sausage!

[Gloria]

Day 3:

Today went pretty well, food-wise. I ate cereal and blueberries for breakfast; water to drink. For lunch I was able to heat my soup in the library cafeteria microwave. The canned chicken was great! I'll try to post the brand when I get home. DH even ate the soup, too. I had some chocolate chip cookies that I had baked a while ago. DH ate some of them, too! I ate some cherries, too. I think that was a mistake because I had a little softer stool tonight. Or maybe it was the sausage. Or the blueberries.

We found another motel with a refrigerator and microwave for tonight. We heated our P.F. Changs leftovers in the microwave. The refrigerator doesn't have a freezer, so the desk clerk graciously offered to let us put our ice packs in their freezer.

We'll probably have tuna sandwiches and potato chips for lunch tomorrow. I drank three 8 oz. containers of Almond Dream milk today. Last night the only beverage choices at P.F. Changs were Diet Coke, Sprite or water. I had regular Sprite because caffeine at dinner keeps me awake. Maybe that caused today's problem. I'm either going to bring my own almond milk or have water the next time out.

We're getting into a routine now. We empty the cooler contents into the refrigerator as soon as we check in. We brought a luggage cart to carry our coolers into the hotel and used it to bring one cooler into the library today. My dishpan works well for washing the dishes and I use the hotel washcloth and towel to dry them.

When the trip is done, I plan on posting the list of items I brought along with the lessons I learned. There seems to little information available for traveling with this disease and its dietary constraints. Writing on the board each day will help me remember what worked and what didn't, so bear with me right now.

Gloria

[starfire]

Gloria,
I think the log of your trip is really fantastic. I'm sure a lot of us will pick up some great tips to apply. Thank You!!

Love, Shirley

[Gas Bag]

My money's on the sausage and the fruit! you are a brave woman.

I love reading about your trip and how you and handling your dietary needs.

Deb

[Gloria]

Day 4:

My MC is acting up again. Solid this morning, D tonight. I haven't been going twice a day for quite a while. I think it's the fruit. Yesterday I had hot cocoa rice with blueberries, and water for breakfast. Today I had a tapioca-free waffle, maple syrup and blueberries. This motel had cranberry juice, so I drank about 8 oz., when I've been drinking just 1/3 of a cup at home. I have considered that it could be the Almond Dream milk, because I drink 1 1/2 cups at the most at home and yesterday I drank 3 cups of it. I usually blend my homemade rice milk with it at home, but I've run out of it. The other possibility is that I ate a cherry Lära bar yesterday. I haven't eaten Lära bars or nuts in quite a while, and that Lära bar had almonds, cherries and dates. I'm not going to eat them again for a while. I was hungry and that was all I had around to snack on.

For lunch I had the last of the turkey on my homemade bread. The bread is starting to get dry because I can't fit it in the freezer. I also had potato chips and almond milk and the chocolate hearts that I melt and mold. I'm surprised that the hearts are keeping their shape at room temperature. I've had them turn powdery on other trips.

We ate at Arby's for dinner tonight. They put my beef on a bun, even though I asked them not to, so DH returned it and they gave him the beef in a plastic container. I found some Ener-g GF hamburger buns in the organic grocery store a couple of days ago.

DH bought 1 1/2 lbs. of fudge a few nights ago. I have to admit that I ate a small slice of the raspberry-chocolate yesterday and a bigger slice of the maple tonight. I wish he wouldn't have bought it - it keeps calling my name.

I'm realizing that a traveling vacation with this disease isn't that relaxing. I'm always worried about my next meal. I wanted to eat at Olive Garden tonight, but we weren't hungry when we were near the restaurant. By the time we were hungry, we were in the middle of nowhere. I've seen Arby's all over the place, so we had to ask for directions to the nearest Arby's so I could eat. We passed by many restaurants en route. In "the old days," I wouldn't have hesitated to stop at one. Now I have a very small selection to choose from for dinner. DH wanted to do a more remote trip, but I worried that the road
less traveled would also have fewer of acceptable restaurants.

I looked through travel magazines when we were considering this trip. All of the articles not only emphasized the attractions, but also the eateries. Eating new foods in different restaurants is a big part of vacationing, and I have to admit that I miss that component. DH hasn't complained, thank goodness. He did start to help me pick out the tiny amount of green onions from my P.F. Changs dinner. I asked him why he was helping and he said he wanted to be sure that I wouldn't have a reaction and cross another restaurant off my list. That made me realize that he's silently suffering along with me.

Gloria

[tex]

Gloria,

The "extra" BM may have been from the Ener-g GF hamburger buns. They contain tapioca starch, don't they?

You're doing pretty good. I got "glutened" on the second day of my last trip. LOL.

Tex

[Rosie]

Gloria, your "blog" of your road trip is so interesting and helpful. I haven't taken any long trips since I was diagnosed with LC in June and this gives me a place to start. And fortunately my problems didn't start until we were back from our long-planned 3 week trip the New Zealand last February. I shudder to think about how awful it would have been if the constant diarrhea had started before or during the trip. Although I will say that New Zealand is fairly advanced about dealing with food allergies. A number of restaurants have a "G" or "D" next to menu items indicating gluten-free or dairy-free. That's so much nicer than having to quiz the waitress and have her go back to the kitchen to ask the cook. I wish restaurants here would do this. I think that it's coming, especially as awareness of how many people have gluten and dairy issues spreads. When restaurant owners realize that they could increase their number of customers with just a few changes to their menus then life will be easier for us. But these sorts of changes come slowly......

I'm lucky that my DH isn't a big fan of restaurant meals. He would be perfectly happy to eat sandwiches and fruit. And he has been very supportive of this lifestyle change. Of course this means that I would have to plan all the meals and figure out how to transport the ingredients since he isn't tuned in to where gluten hides. It sure would make life easier if we could have at least some of the burden taken away by eating at restaurants, but such is life....... I would rather have these problems than be tied to a bathroom at home!

Rosie

[Gloria]

Day 5:

We're returning home tomorrow. This was primarily a genealogy trip and I've finished my research (for now). I'm looking forward to going home again. I'll still need to plan each upcoming meal at home, but I'll have everything nearby. This trip hasn't been as bad as I worried it would be, though. I've eaten about the same as I do at home, but I haven't eaten soup as much because it needs to be heated.

Breakfast was easy and the same as I ate at home. Lunch was the most difficult, as always, primarily because I try to rotate eating sandwiches. I've been watchful because my Enterolab results showed I had antibodies to yeast. I still eat yeast bread because I've never noticed any problems afterward, but I don't want to push it. When we traveled before my MC, we ate sandwiches every day. My bread is getting dry, but it hasn't spoiled and I still have enough for one more sandwich. I'll make tuna sandwiches for us tomorrow.

Dinner wasn't too bad because I have a list of about 5-6 GF restaurants that I eat from regularly. We ate at Olive Garden tonight. DH looked up the nearest location on a computer at the library while I was doing research. I haven't cooked any dinners, even though I packed utensils so that I could, if necessary. The biggest hindrance is that a road trip, by definition, means that you're on the road and we were seldom checked into a motel before dinner.

I haven't mentioned that one of the two coolers that I have is a thermoelectric cooler that we bought over 25 years ago. It plugs into the car lighter and cools without ice. It's great. We even kept it plugged in all day and it didn't run down the battery. They aren't manufactured anymore. I tried to buy another one on Ebay before I left, but someone outbid me. Having one cooler that didn't need ice packs meant that we could fit the other cooler's ice packs in the freezer. We've only stayed at motels which automatically provide a microwave and a refrigerator. I only used the microwave twice: once to cook broccoli for my soup and once to make hot rice cereal. The motels have all also offered a free breakfast for DH, so I didn't have to deal with bringing my own breakfast to a restaurant.

A GPS would be a definite plus. The compass didn't help that much. I found a website that lists GF restaurants around the country. It would be great to tap into that while traveling. Having a laptop also helps a lot because I can look up restaurants and GF grocery stores.

I haven't been able to snack that much, but I don't at home, either. What's left to snack on? I'm looking forward to eating some coconut ice cream when I get home, though.

All in all, the trip was a success. I expected to have a reaction here or there, and I did. So far, so good today. I didn't eat blueberries, so I suspect they're a problem. I can eat them cooked, but not fresh, it seems.

I don't know if I could do this for two weeks. I think you'd have to have an RV for an extensive trip, or travel to a destination and stay there, as some have said they do.

Gloria

[MaggieRedwings]

Morning Gloria,

All in all I would say you had a really successful trip. Not easy but you are a planner like me and that makes things a whole lot easier. You blog was extremely interesting and I found it really insiteful.

Love, Maggie

[JoAnn]

Gloria, thank you for documenting your trip. This is going to be so helpful to so many of us. What do you eat at the Olive Garden? Thanks, JoAnn

[Gloria]

Hi JoAnn,

The Olive Garden has a separate gluten-free menu. There are 5 items on it: Steak Toscano ($20.75), Herb-Grilled Salmon ($16.25), Mixed Grill (steak and chicken) ($16.25), Mixed Grill (all chicken) ($16.25) and Children's Grilled Chicken (not sure of the price). You can take the menu home, which I did. That's how I know the items. I wrote the prices on the menu.

I get the Mixed Grill (steak and chicken), which is "Skewers of grilled steak and chicken marinated in Italian herbs and extra-virgin olive oil,. Served with broccoli and grilled vegetables." I've had it twice and both times they've substituted potato wedges for the broccoli, for some reason. I haven't had any problems with it and it's pretty tasty. There are three pieces of steak and three of chicken. I get two meals out of it.

Gloria

[JoAnn]

Hi Gloria, I had no idea they had a gf menu. Wow, now I can try a different restaurant. The only one I have felt safe going to around here is Sizzler. Thanks for the information. JoAnn

[Gloria]

Ahh, I forgot about Sizzler. I'm glad to know there's another restaurant that's safe. Don't forget about P.F. Changs in Salt Lake City.

Gloria