Snacking in the Car

Happy Easter! He is risen!

What is it about driving trips that makes me want to eat junk food? Or even just eat more? Perhaps it's the celebratory aspect of being on vacation and going somewhere different. Perhaps its the fact that you can't do much else while in the car. (I forgot the car bingo and audio book this time...). I savored a chocolate bar for the first time in several months. And a couple of chocolate covered Easter bunny cookies.

Guilt!

We drove from Kettleman City this morning, reaching Tejon Ranch just north of the Grapevine on I-5 by noon. To add insult to injury I had a Del Taco burrito for lunch. (I don't even want to know how many calories that contained but I'm sure it was enough for an entire day.) We would have gone to In-N-Out, but they are closed for Christmas and Easter. (Good for them!)

We continued on our journey through the Grapevine and decided to stop at the Antelope Valley California Poppy Preserve. Just a few miles off of I-5, we were here at the perfect time of year as you could see miles of green hillsides covered with bright orange swaths of poppies, with a few purple wildflower patches. We stopped at the visitor center and discovered that the poppies were late because of snowfall a week earlier. Perhaps we would see more poppies on the way back from our vacation? Even if the poppies were late bloomers, some kind of allergen was in the air because from the minute I got out of the car, I couldn't stop sneezing and coughing. Despite this, we all enjoyed God's beautiful show of wildflowers.

After half an hour of walking amidst the flowers, we continued on our way down I-5 to Oceanside. We hit the Los Angeles freeway traffic, which moved better than expected except in a few spots. At last we reached Oceanside, and we took our son to the beach before having dinner at Joe's Crab Shack - which was just about right since our son managed to get his shorts very wet!