A Day of Play begins with a Plan and Preparation and an Eye for Economy!

I got up yesterday morning and decided to see some of Northern New Mexico by car.

I had been thinking about doing it and considering I was planning on moving up the road mid week, I decided no time better than the present.

So this was kind of a planned impulse.... if that makes any sense.

First thing I did was look at some routes.... I always like to stretch things a little bit so I devised a big loop (I only ended up doing part of this loop dropping straight down 84 from Tierra Amarilla).....

With a smaller loop from Taos known as the Enchanted Circle shown in the 2nd pic below.

The first thing I think of when I plan a road trip or any extended trip (> 2 - 3 hours) away from home base is....

Food!

Yeah... I could have stopped and bought food but that would have just added Time and Expense to the Trip...

And I wanted to See a Lot of Country in a Little Time with a Little Money.

So I put together enough food to last me from Dawn to Dusk!

Beginning with the Triple Protein shown above - 

2 slices of Trader Joe's All Natural Uncured Turkey Bacon

A generous patty of my Ground Turkey Breast / Veggie mix

A link of Trader Joe's Jalapeno Chicken Sausage...

And a few accessories shown below.....

Rolled up in that white towel is a spoon, fork and knife.

3 boiled eggs

2 bananas

Seasoning

20 oz of Creatine / Fresca mix

I later added some raisins and nuts and some fresh grapes.

I also sauted a skillet of fresh kale and sliced up an already baked sweet potato and added that to the triple layer of protein (I covered up the protein but it's at the bottom of the container).

Then to get me started on the trip, I ate a bowl consisting of a boiled egg, a diced banana, mixed nuts and dried fruit and fresh grapes with a little drizzle of honey and a sprinkle of cinnamon.

I gassed up the Toyota Corolla Rental - my favorite choice for a rental car.

This car is rented for an all-in taxes included rate of $900 / month which is pretty cheap.

Gas is cheap now.... we'll talk about why in a later post..... and why it's likely to say cheap for a while.

$15 to fill up the Corolla.... and I drove all day on it.... over 350 miles and still came back with 1/4 tank.

I bought 2 cups of coffee during the day and ate my packed food when I felt hungry and took an all day drive through beautiful Northern New Mexico for a total of.....

Car Rental = $30

Gas =           $12

Coffee =       $  3

Food =         $  7

-------------------

Total  =        $52

Not Bad for an entire Day of....

Discovery!