What a month it has been. I just told Mirra, “we are already one sixth of the way through!” Perhaps she thought, “Oh God, only one sixth?!?!” But it has been fun and the only time we ever fight is right before dinner time. I want something Southern (bbq, catfish, crawfish) and she wants… pasta with avocado and parmesan cheese. I know MIrra has been writing about the trials of eating vegetarian on the road — it’s also a challenge to eat meat that’s good quality. The big cities have a bounty of everything, but on the back roads, it’s a similarly miserable boat.
We are driving more than we thought. Texas for instance is one huge state and google maps must calculate its time/distance estimates with some serious speeding in mind. But the drives are wonderful. The United States is an incredible country to pass through. There are the mountains and canyons and desserts to gawk at, but also small towns that seem completely forgotten — its out of another world. In fact we went through Sudan, TX and it didn’t seem in much better repair than most of the country Sudan. There is something about a different life that makes us want to look, such is a drive across America.
This trip is an eye opener about America. There are people doing amazing things with food, but many of the stories we hear are not all happy tales. This good food movement is important, and its central to what I am a part of, but the folks we are discovering are more than anything just living their lives; hunting, fishing and farming more for survival than sustainability. Its hard under normal circumstances to delve into a person’s history – but through food, we are able to connect and make friends and really get to know people. Someone on the road said that we are using food as an excuse to get the crazy details of people’s lives, it wasn’t our intention but its turning out that way.
