Road Foods

I have made many trips up and down the I-5 over the years. Most recently was a trip to Disneyland with my family. This was one of the few times, I decided to take the path less travel when it came to my dining experiences.

Often, I am guilty like the rest of you of just going with the old stand by. Burgers and fast food chains that follow you where ever you go.

I'm not saying that this is a totally bad thing, since often the familiarity provides the most comfort. But what I am saying is sometimes we need to go beyond our comfort. Sometimes you may surprise yourself with something quite unexpected. On this trip, this happened a couple of times. First on the way down to L.A., I was surprised by the Willow Ranch BBQ. A really good BBQ in the middle of nowhere. It was quite by accident that we found it, and once we tasted the food, we knew we were in foodie heaven.

Even in L.A. we made detours just the get out of the ordinary. Like when we found Joe's Ice Cream stand. A popular hangout place in Orange County for some late night sweet cravings.

There is something to be said of the adventurous spirit needed to out of your comfort zone. I know of people that for some reason or another, refuses to trying anything new at all. On trips they would go to the same stops, order the same food and have the same exact experiences each time. I was once like that. I like knowing what I was getting myself into. But as I'm getting older, I realized that to not willing to try something new, I'm depriving myself of unexpected treasures that life has set out for each of us.

Some times it may not go our way, (see my Song Long review), but at least I can say I was not afraid to try it. On road trips, especially, we can get out of our daily ruts. Try something new and report to the world what we found.

There were still some stops which I was looking forward to trying but we never quite reach them. Split Pea Anderson is suppose to have some of the best split pea soup around. There were many fruits stands to probably sell the fresh fruit and vegetables you can get anywhere. Unique restaurants that can be found no where else. I'm actually looking forward to my next road trip. It's like an unopened present. You don't know what is in it, but you look forward to opening it.