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Emmy Schoening

Kim Lacey

English 111 31

19 September 2019

Sandwiches Across the Country

I ate sandwiches for a month straight. My family and I were on the road headed out

west to see as many national parks as we could. My parents kept telling my siblings and I that

we were on a strict budget and schedule, which meant we ate quick cheap meals. This vacation

was a month long and one of the greatest experiences of my life. I saw so many new parts of

our beautiful country and had lots of new experiences, but what stands out in my memory the

most is the sandwiches. Everywhere we went, through the good, the bad, and all the silly times in

between, we ate sandwiches. I usually had a sandwich for lunch and dinner. This wasn’t

because we loved sandwiches or didn’t buy anything else, they just happened to be the most

convenient food option while being on the road for so long.

While driving out in the west side of the country we quickly discovered that it is easy to

go miles without reaching any sort of town. We would drive for hours at a time with little to no

stops. There were times we weren’t sure if we could even find a gas station, let alone any

restaurants for dinner. We traveled in our Ford Excursion that pulled our little pop-up camper.

That means everything we ate had to be nonperishable or kept in our cooler. Our first long

stretch of road is when we really started to eat lots of sandwiches.

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I can remember early in the trip making peanut butter sandwiches in the car. I had

climbed into the back to get to the bread and peanut butter, then used the cooler as a table.

This was the first time doing this and we were inexperienced. We didn’t have anything else to

put on a sandwich and we didn’t have any knives, so I did my best to spread peanut butter with

a fork. I would make one sandwich after another and keep passing them up. The driver, my

dad, would get the first sandwich. Then my mom got the next one, then my older sister, and of

course we made my 10-year-old brother wait for the last sandwich. By the time I got around to

eating my own someone would already be asking for seconds. These sandwiches were not

good. In fact, they probably weren’t even ok, but we were all happy to eat them because we

didn’t have any other options at the time.

One of our first stops was at Death Valley National Park. We were all so excited to

finally get out of the car. As soon as I stepped out, I could feel the dry, hot air against my skin.

It was a heat I had never experienced before. We loaded up our backpacks with lots of water

and the few snacks we had left. We had pretzel sticks, a few apples, and of course peanut

butter sandwiches. We hiked for as long as we could, but the dry heat made it difficult to

breathe. It was like hiking through a sauna. We were all sweating after walking for just five

minutes. My family seemed to be miserable, but we kept hiking anyways. It felt like an eternity

later that we finally decided to stop for lunch. That day I was not in a good mood, none of us

were. I was starving, sweaty, and almost certain I was going to die of heat exhaustion. I was so

hungry and excited to eat, until I remembered all we had was peanut butter sandwiches. This

just put me into an even worse mood, and I would have complained a whole lot if I had the

energy. I was so hungry, hot, and tired that I was just thankful to have anything to eat at all. I
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had the realization that I was in this beautiful place with the people I love and that I should be

thankful that I had the opportunity to be grumpy about my peanut butter sandwich.

Although I was not happy about it, I continued to eat lots and lots of sandwiches

throughout the trip. As we made our way to the west coast, we became more creative with our

food. We stocked up on all different kinds of lunch meats and cheeses. We had a cooler full of

salami, turkey, ham, roast beef, cheddar cheese, provolone, and swiss. We even had

mayonnaise, mustard, jam, butter, and Nutella to make them a little more exciting. We did our

best to try to keep the cooler stocked with lots of options. Even with all these options, we

would still get sick of them. So, over the month-long trip, we created some pretty unusual

sandwiches. The grossest one I remember eating is a sandwich my dad made for me that had

just Nutella and salami on it. It was disgusting!

Throughout this trip I saw some of the most beautiful parts of our country. One of my

favorite things we did, was have a picnic lunch every day. We never ate at the same spot twice

and it was always an adventure to find the perfect spot. My favorite picnic spot was one we

hiked a mile and a half to get to. We hiked to the bottom of a trickling waterfall where we were

able to play in the waterfall and swim in the crystal-clear river. That day I ate like royalty. I had

a roast beef and cheddar cheese sandwich while sitting against the rocks on the backside of the

waterfall. Life was good. It was a perfect day, at a perfect picnic spot, and I had a perfect

sandwich.

Even though there were times we complained about eating sandwiches, we all enjoyed

the trip and the times we spent joking about sandwiches. We were thankful for the trip and the

time we spent together even if it meant eating 300 bad sandwiches. I loved seeing all the
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national parks and our nice long hikes. We all looked forward to our picnics each day because

they brought us together. One of the only things we could agree on is we all hate sandwiches,

and ever since it's been an ongoing joke in my family. When we go on a vacation, it is now a

tradition to have at least one picnic lunch where we enjoy a mediocre sandwich. It’s a tradition

that has become important to my family and one that I hope we never let go of.