People planning post-pandemic road trips

Americans are itching to hit the road.

A year ago, we were in the second full month of the COVID-19 pandemic and millions of us were staying close to home, venturing out only when absolutely necessary.

As a result, the 2020 summer travel season, which traditionally kicks off with the Memorial Day weekend, was curtailed and the "road trip" was redefined as a run to the grocery store for toilet paper and hand sanitizer.

Fast forward to May 2021. Millions of us have been vaccinated, the number of daily COVID-19 cases is just a fraction of what it was just a few months ago and there appears to be a light at the end of the pandemic tunnel (and hopefully it's not a freight train!).

And although I'll be staying close to home (I usually write my columns and wrap up stories for the Missourian's business pages on Saturdays and Sundays), AAA Travel expects at least 37 million of you to pack your suitcases and travel 50 miles or more during the holiday weekend.

That's an increase of 60% compared to last year when only 23 million Americans traveled during the same weekend, the lowest number since AAA started tracking Memorial Day travel more than 20 years ago.

The vast majority of next weekend's travelers — about 34.4 million — will be on the nation's highways, according to AAA. Another 2.5 million will be flying, while just under a quarter million will travel by bus, train or ship.

Naturally, the number of travelers could take a nosedive if there's an unanticipated spike in numbers this week, but with only a few days before the holiday weekend, that possibility appears unlikely. Not only that, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has updated its guidance (as it seems to do just about every other day) to say fully vaccinated people can travel domestically at low risk to themselves as long as they're taking proper precautions.

And just where's everyone headed? A new report on 2021's "best summer travel destinations" lists Orlando, Florida, as the nation's No. 1 domestic destination. Other top 10 destinations, listed in order of their popularity, are Honolulu; New Orleans; Austin, Texas; Atlanta; Salt lake City; Tulsa, Oklahoma; Los Angeles; Oklahoma City; and Little Rock, Arkansas.

Surprisingly, Washington, D.C., didn't make the top 10, but it narrowly edged out Springfield, Missouri, for the 11th spot on the destination list. Springfield was the only Missouri city among the survey's 20 most popular summer destinations, probably because of its proximity to Branson.

If you haven't stayed abreast of gasoline prices lately, you may be in for some sticker shock on your Memorial Day weekend road trip. According to Gas Buddy, the national average price of gasoline is expected to be $2.98 a gallon by next weekend. That's a slight drop from last week's national average of just over $3, but still about a dollar higher the price of a gallon of regular unleaded gas on Memorial Day last year. (Things could be worse; on Memorial Day 2014, the average price at the pump in the United States was $3.66.)

Safe travels everyone (and send me a post card)!

Fire up the grill ...

Millions of Americans will observe Memorial Day next weekend, but a much lesser known observance is coming up this week celebrating one of the cornerstone foods of Western civilization — the hamburger.

Friday is National Hamburger Day, observed annually May 28 in recognition of the 50 billion burgers Americans eat every year.

So why do we celebrate it and why is it called "hamburger" when it contains no ham?

Well, to start with, here are some quick "burger bites":

• Americans eat more than 50 billion hamburgers every year (that's an average of more than 150 burgers annually for every man, woman and child).
• Hamburgers account for nearly half of all sandwiches sold in the U.S.
• Cheeseburgers became popular in the 1920s.
• McDonald's sells 75 hamburgers every second, 4,500 every minute and 270,000 every hour. That comes out to an average of almost 6.5 million each day.

No one knows who started National Hamburger Day, but based on my research, hamburger itself can be traced back to ancient Egypt where ground meat was formed into patties and preserved with various spices.

Genghis Khan's soldiers reportedly ate patties of raw ground meat tenderized under the saddles of their horses. When the Mongolian army advanced into Russia, those meat patties were converted into a raw beef delicacy known as steak tartare. Sometime in the 16th Century, steak tartare made its way from Russia to the port of Hamburg, Germany.

Named for that German city, Hamburg steaks became popular among German sailors and were introduced to America by German immigrants during the 18th and 19th centuries, where the patties were placed in biscuits and between slices of bread.

Several towns in the United State claim to be the birthplace of the "American" version of the hamburger, but it's in Seymour, Wisconsin, where you'll find a 12-foot statue of Charles Nagreen, aka "Hamburger Charlie," who many claim invented the sandwich in Seymour in 1885. The town of fewer than 3,500 residents is also home to the Seymour Community History Museum, which houses what is said to be the world's largest collection of hamburger-related items.

Perhaps Seymour should be added to our list of "road trip destinations" this summer.

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