I read with interest Kristin Jackson's Kidding Around article in the Times "Travel menu doesn't need to be junk" (Seattle Times Travel, Aug. 3). Your points are well taken, but may I offer additional tips? As a card-carrying grandpa and "travel guide" to now two generations of car/van travelers, these are lessons learned by hard work and bitter experience. . . .

You said it: Picnics! Unfortunately, that requires some planning ahead which is not necessarily the long suit of most pops and moms. First, it requires at least a cooler and a supply of paper plates, plastic cups and paper towels. Besides the cooler, one needs a bunch of these plastic "refrigerator leftover" boxes with lids. And now here is a sure-fire feeding formula that has worked wonders for years and is not grease-sugar-msg-salt based:

1) Before the trip, go to the grocery store. Purchase bread, some mayo, sliced turkey, roast beef and non-salty ham. From the veggie section, get some bananas, grapes, one or two bags of those little miniature baby carrots, a celery, some onion greens and maybe a cucumber.

2) At home, separate everything into readily accessible packages, wash the grapes and the celery, peel the cucumber and boil the eggs.

3) In the morning before the trip, make sandwiches! Sliced bread (I toast mine) with some mayo (or mustard) smeared on one side, and load the sliced bread up with (a) eggs and chopped green onions, (b) turkey and cucumber slices with green onions, and (c) roast beef or ham and cucumber slices and the white portions of the onions. Wrap them in tinfoil. 4) Into one of these plastic fridge leftover cans go the carrots, into another the celery (sliced to length) and into a separate container the grapes. Plus whatever cukes and onions are left over go into still another box. Bananas do not need to be boxed. Eggs do.

All of these go into the cooler (maybe with some of this cooler-ice on the bottom) and you are ready for the road! Be assured you can feed your crowd for two days out of that box without stopping at any fast-food greasy spoon.

Sometimes I make "road chicken" a day ahead. Get the minimum-priced leg quarters, chop them in half and now you have drumsticks and thighs at one-third the price. I even remove the skin from the chicken for less fat. Bake them in your trusty oven and let 'em cool. Yes, they will be cold the next day, but even a cold chicken drumstick will just about evaporate when a kid is hungry.

For drinks - no soda-pops or sugar-fizzes for us! The grocery store has square-packaged juices (they come with a straw). We also take a big jug of drinking water along or a six-pack of these individual sized water bottles. This system has been tested and proven under the most severe travel conditions. But, alas, there might come a time when a stop at a fast-food palace is inevitable. Here are a few more tips offered from long experience . . .

Try Carl's Jr - they usually have a salad bar at the ready. Or any other place with a salad bar. If you absolutely have to have a greasy hamburger, the best are made at "In-N-Out Burger" (not yet in the Northwest, I believe). A 99-cent Whopper is a good value . . . and the veggies are usually fresh.

The roadside farmers markets have good local produce or fruit, they are worth a stop and look-see . . .

And last, if as a tour guide you haven't learned anything else, remember: DON'T EVER ASK YOUR KIDS IN A RESTAURANT WHAT THEY WANT!

Get their preferences before you go in the door and then you order it and distribute it! Traveling with kids should not be an exercise in democracy - it just doesn't work! Hillar Raamat Coupeville, WA