I’m back!
After a 16-day vacation hiatus (7 days in Santa Cruz, California, 7 days in Canmore, Alberta, and 2 days in airports) I’ve got a ton of pics to post. My travels were exhilarating, inspiring, and regrettably too short. The week in Santa Cruz with Omnivore Boyfriend (O.B.) was very relaxing—we spent our time surfing, kayaking, wildlife-spotting, and just max-chillin’ on on the beach. Santa Cruz is a cute, warm, friendly, and safe seaside town and I love it there.
In terms of food, we tried to eat as cheaply as possible.
This meant taking advantage of the hotel's free continental breakfast: coffee or juice, cereal, and toast.
It actually wasn’t that bad! I added soy milk or yogurt to give it some staying power.
Instead of eating out every day, we hit a local grocery store on the first day to stock up on supplies. It was thus that I finally discovered Trader Joe’s, a wonderful American institution selling mostly healthy, organic foodstuffs—including a $3.99 tub of 3-layered hummus (regular, cilantro, and jalapeno), morningstar vegan burgers, and those wee mini Dempster’s bagels that you only get in America.
We ate out a couple times cause, heck, we were on vacation! After a long afternoon at the UC Santa Cruz (staring in baffled wonder at the tree-sitters protesting campus expansion), we strolled into Taqueria Vallarta near the beach for some awesomely cheap (<$2) Mexican fare.
"Vegie taco"
The burrito was a little mushy. It consisted of 50% guacamole eand 50% refried beans. Shouldn’t there be lettuce in there?
One night we went to Charlie Hong Kong, an organic Asian restaurant with lots of vegan options.
Laughing Pheonix Red Curry
vermicelli noodle salad
rice-paper wrap
I also tried to see what cacti tasted like.
Cacti = not edible.
The next leg of my travels took me to Canmore, Alberta, where I stayed in an alpine hut and hiked/scrambled daily in the Rocky Mountains with a group from the Alpine Club of Canada. I loved every minute! The hikes were crazy challenging, but it was such a rush to summit each and every peak. I also swam in a glacial lake, saw a grizzly bear, and made a dozen or so new friends or job contacts. I don’t know the total kms hiked but over the week I ascended a total of 15,500 vertical ft (for comparison, it’s 11, 330 vertical ft to the summit of Mt Everest from Everest Base Camp). My ass is tired!! But I was well-fed; the camp cook took pretty good care of me and my food exclusions. Except for breakfast… I kinda got stuck eating toast every day, which is lame when you have a 7-hour hike ahead!
Lunches were made the night before. I usually packed 2 sandwiches or wraps containing soy meat/cheese, veggies, and hummus or dijon mustard, fruit, and lots of cereal bars
Lunches were made the night before. I usually packed 2 sandwiches or wraps containing soy meat/cheese, veggies, and hummus or dijon mustard, fruit, and lots of cereal bars
Leftover spring rolls
Dinner was different every night, and it was usually just a small variation on what the omnis were served. I only photographed a couple of the meals:
Polenta, carrots, mixed green, and phyllo-vegetable thingy
Tofu with capers and spinach
Mexican night!
A burrito with soy cheese and soy ground beef, wild rice, corn bread, and a mix of tomatoes, lettuce, and guacamole.
Phyllo with roasted red peppers, zucchini and eggplant; ginger sesame tofu, risotto
Sesame-cabbage salad
And that brings my food pictures to an end! I’ve got one more to share though. This next pic is me at the summit of Mt Lady Macdonald:
You can tell from this picture what I meant when I said it was a "rush" to summit a peak---check out that view!!
I hope everyone has been having a great August. I’ll be over to check the round of food blogs tonight or tomorrow!
-Maureen
Mad About Udon 