Camping cooler aids in trip-chaining and grocery shopping

Do you ever read books or articles that make something sound really wonderful, like voluntary simplicity or eating locally for a year? I do. I get all excited and start brainstorming on how I'll make that work in my family. Then reality sets in. I have young children. Next, I go into a funk and have to fight off urges to eat a whole pint of frozen yogurt in one sitting.

This is what I went through when I first learned about trip chaining -- where you plan to do all your driving in one great big outing, in a logical order with no back-tracking, avoiding as many left turns as possible. The challenge with young kids is that you can't often make outings last longer than two or three stops. Otherwise you enter the melt-down zone. No one wants to go there. So crazy ideas about hitting the library, park, hardware store, book store, fabric store, grocery store, followed by the kids' clothing consignment store quickly are written off as next-to-impossible.

Regardless, I have learned one important thing that helps with trip chaining. The grocery store does not have to be your last stop. Thanks to our good, old camping cooler, it can be my first stop or middle stop. I just pop the camping cooler in the trunk of the car prior to going out on my errands. After grocery shopping, all cold or frozen things get packed into the cooler. Then I'm good to go for however many more errands we need to do in that trip before approaching the melt-down zone. Prior to figuring this out, I always used to think the grocery store had to be an out-and-back errand to make sure the cold and frozen foods didn't melt or go bad sitting in a hot-box car while the kids visited a park. I also have one of those insulated hot/cold bags that keep a few items cold on walking or biking trips.

What do you do to make trip chaining with kids a breeze?