So we had to go to Arkansas for a wedding. We rented a massive vehicle (bare in mind that I’m a girl who would prefer something the size of a bicycle, so my perspective may be exaggerated) and loaded up myself, the hubby, all three girls, and one boyfriend and headed south. Knowing we had a vegan, a vegetarian and then four omnivores, we were prepared for this to be an adventure when it came to food, or so we thought.
I prepared! We packed sandwiches, PB&J for the vegan and vegetarian, and meat and cheese for the meat eaters. I kind of overdid it on sandwiches, but hey, we ate all but three of them. We packed dried fruit, cereal bars, pretzel thins, goldfish, hummus, crackers, fruit…all the things! This worked out great on the trip down. We also packed plenty of bottled water. This saved money and stops, which was awesome.
The first failed meal came on our stop overnight in Missouri. The hotel breakfast had nothing a vegan would touch except an apple. Luckily, we still hand PB&J for her when we got on the road. But little did we know that this theme would carry through every meal until we headed home. But our prepacked road snacks carried us through lunch and we made it to Arkansas.
During the road trip, I researched places to eat in Conway that offered vegan options so we could have dinner before the wedding. We had a place all picked out. After settling into our AirBNB, I call ahead to make sure they are open because the website was confusing. Turns out they aren’t even open for business yet. So again, I have to research. Finally, we end up at TGI Fridays because they have the Beyond Burger. The vegetarian ordered buttered pasta and replaced the broccoli that is supposed to come with it with fruit, which she did not eat. Minor fail on nutrition, but overall, a successful meal.
My parents and grandparents wanted to have a big family breakfast the next morning, so I again researched to find a place everyone could eat. Reading online reviews, Golden Corral seemed to be the best option. There were all these posts about them having lots of fresh fruits and such on the bar. Well, they did not. They had like 4. All the breads had butter or milk or egg. It was unclear if the hash browns had been cooked with lard or bacon fat or such. So the vegan basically had a plate of fruit and some tater tots. The vegetarian had pancakes, waffles and a giant yeast roll. Epic nutrition fail. I did try deep fried bacon. That was awesome.
Saturday evening, we headed to Searcy to a catfish house for dinner. You can imagine how well that goes over with both the vegan and vegetarian. We hit Burger King on the way for the vegan, and she just passed on the buffet. But the vegetarian ate some okra, of course a bunch of bread, and ice cream. So, we totally won on the nutritional meter with this one! It also turns out that the hubby does not love southern style catfish. Finally, we headed back north Sunday morning. We left at about 5 am, so we did not eat prior to hitting the road. We decided to stop at Burger King to get food. I didn’t want to waste the time, so we decided we would get it to go. We chose Burger King because they have vegan options, including the Impossible Whopper and French toast sticks (which are accidentally vegan). However, it turned into a minor disaster at first when we told the 9 year old she couldn’t have french toast sticks because she couldn’t have syrup in the rental car. There were tears. It took much convincing, but ultimately, she chose an egg and cheese croissant sandwich. We got an egg in her! She ate the whole thing, so evidently, it was not bad. We stuck with snacks the rest of the way back.
All I have to say is thank goodness for Burger King and that Impossible Whopper, because there is very little vegan food available in Arkansas. And we really had to amp up our vegetable and healthy food intake this week to make up for the nutritional void of the weekend.
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Foodie's Delimma 