If the Lee Girls, had to pick one place that epitomizes our shopping and eating experience it would most certainly be Cracker Barrel. If you have never been to a Cracker Barrel, which I find hard to believe, you’re in for an awesome experience. Think old country store complete with a big front porch furnished with rockers, checker boards and all kinds of merchandise for sale such as clothing and home furnishings, combined with a southern food restaurant, featuring dishes like Fried Okra and Chicken and Dumplings, an
d you’ve got the idea. But Cracker Barrel is more than that. It’s can be your tour guide too. Tour guide you say? Yes, tour guide. I have long maintained that where there’s a Cracker Barrel off a highway exit, you’ll find good roadside hotels. I proved my hypothesis on our latest road trip.
Last month my husband and I decided to take the 2-day drive north to see my mother-in-law. (The younger Lee Girl had to miss the trip as she was working.) It’s nearly impossible to make advance reservations for a night on the road. You may plan on covering a certain number of miles per day, but that is not always possible with road work or unforeseen traffic accidents. When it gets dark, things become even more difficult to decide where to stop. In our case it was worse because plows left tall piles of snow street side blocking low level signs like entrances and exits.
In getting ready for our journey, I decided to pick up one of the Cracker Barrel maps showing their locations. I was sad to learn they no longer carry them. Apparently, they couldn’t keep the maps current with the rapid addition of new restaurants. On the bright side I was informed they have a computer website and an app for your phone. The website has a trip planning tool. Just type in your departure address and your destination address. It will produce a viable driving map. Unfortunately, it looks like the app doesn’t have the trip planner portion.
So yes, you can use the locations of Cracker Barrels to find decent hotels on your journey. Even when we weren’t looking for lodging, we checked each Cracker Barrel exit to verify hotel locations. They were there. If you would like additional directions in using their website check out the bottom of this blog.
One final mention about Cracker Barrel: Besides feeding you, helping with your gift selection, guiding you in finding a decent hotel, Cracker Barrel will also entertain you on your journey. They rent books on tape. Just pay the rental fee and the price of the chosen book on tape and you can keep it for 7 days. On the 7th day, return it to any Cracker Barrel and you get a full refund less the rental fee.
For the Website go to:
https://www.crackerbarrel.com/locations
Click on Trip Planner
Fill in the “From” and To” section in the Trip Planner and you’ll get an entire map with each Cracker Barrel on it.
To print it, I had to use Windows’ Snipping Tool. You may know a better way.
I also accessed the website on my cellphone. I kept that page open in my phone for easy access.
Travel with the Lee Girls 