Sunday: Road Trip Food, Buc-ee’s & We Made It to the Lake

This morning was pure hustle and bustle.

We were officially leaving for our lake trip, so breakfast was whatever was easiest while we finished loading the car: leftover bacon, bagels from the freezer, and anything else people could grab quickly.

Thankfully, I had done a lot of the food prep last night.

And that made such a difference this morning.

Packing Food for the Drive

Last night I made sandwiches, cut up fruit and vegetables, portioned chips, crackers and pretzels, and packed cheese and some of my homemade beef sticks.

So this morning I wasn’t standing in the kitchen trying to make six different lunches while everyone was asking where their shoes were.

I basically just loaded everything into coolers.

For myself, I made a hot Thermos lunch using the leftover ground beef and sweet potatoes from our burger bowls.

I reheated everything until it was piping hot, preheated my Thermos with boiling water, emptied it, and packed in the hot beef and sweet potatoes.

Then I brought the cold toppings separately so I could add them when we stopped to eat.

It’s basically a burger bowl on the road, and this is exactly the kind of lunch I love for travel. It feels like an actual meal instead of spending four hours eating random snacks out of bags.

What’s in My Vacation Cooler

I brought two coolers on this trip.

I have the smaller soft-sided Costco cooler that we’ll use for the boat and day-to-day snacks.

Then I packed our large hard-sided cooler with most of the frozen food I’ve been making and saving over the past couple of weeks.

Here’s what came with us:

• Frozen grilled chicken
• Frozen taco meat
• Frozen cooked ground beef
• Frozen Dinner Insurance Meatloaf for the night I’m feeding the whole extended family
• Teton Waters Ranch Polish sausage
• Hot dogs
• Cooked pork sausage
• Prepared pineapple chicken from Costco
• Homemade cookie bars my teen made
• Gluten-free, dairy-free, egg-free Monster Cookies
• Extra bacon

This is why I’ve been cooking double batches and slowly putting things into the freezer.

It’s a lot of food.

But we’re feeding seven people for several days in a lake house where we won’t exactly be surrounded by restaurants.

I don’t want to spend vacation cooking from scratch three times a day, but I also don’t want us living entirely on chips and sandwiches.

So I bring the proteins.

Then I had produce and other fresh groceries delivered once we arrived tonight from a local Walmart.

A Buc-ee’s Stop

The drive is only about four hours, so it’s really not bad.

We did make a Buc-ee’s stop along the way, though.

A couple of the kids got fried chicken and French fries, and this particular Buc-ee’s had the tiny individual Blue Bell ice cream containers.

They don’t have those at every location, but they’re so perfect for kids.

Everyone who wanted one picked either chocolate or vanilla and had their little road-trip ice cream treat.

Sometimes part of vacation is just letting Buc-ee’s handle the snack.

We Made It

And now we’re officially at the lake.

Once we arrived, everyone settled in, we put away all the food, passed around snacks, played some Monopoly Deal, and eventually got out on the boat.

One of my siblings made dinner tonight, which was such a nice way to start the trip.

We had chicken and rice with a tomato-based sauce, and then headed back out for another boat ride afterward.

A pretty great first night.

Kitchen Log: Lake Edition

I’m not quite sure what the Kitchen Log is going to look like while we’re here.

I’m definitely not planning to spend my vacation documenting every cracker someone eats.

But I’ll share the good stuff as we go—what we’re eating, how all that freezer prep is working, what I’m putting into the boat cooler, and especially how my big Dinner Insurance Meatloaf night goes when I’m feeding the whole crew.

For now, we made it.

The coolers made it.

The frozen meatloaf made it.

And I think we’re officially ready for a few days at the lake. And yes, all 5 kids are on this trip…but somehow my 7 year old Grant was the photogenic one today! lol!