Road Trippin'

I just returned from a week long road trip to Colorado. It was a lot of fun and I took some fun pictures that I wanted to share. This is mostly a recap of the trip, with a few blurbs on eating...since that is why I am blogging.

Matthew and I set out on Friday morning and began the trek across Washington, Idaho and Montana. We bought some healthy snacks and packed two days worth of lunches in our cute new cooler. We bought oranges, almonds, bananas, and saltines for snacks. The first day, we stopped in Ellensburg and ate our homemade sandwiches with some Popchips (healthy but still an indulgence).

We listened to The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis on tape and finished in time to eat dinner in Missoula, Montana. Matthew was craving Chiptole, which is not present in Montana. However, we stumbled upon a place called Taco Sano which was actually very similar! We drove a little further and stayed the night in Bozeman, Montana.

The next day we set out to finish across Montana, down through Wyoming and onward to Denver, Colorado! We ate breakfast at the hotel and yogurt and granola for lunch. Our friends, Haley and Jesse were why we were going on this trip. They were in Montana for a wedding and were leaving Billings when we left Bozeman. We ended up catching up and meeting in Cheyenne, Wyoming for a dinner over burgers. We reached Denver late at night, got settled and prepared for our busy Sunday.

Jesse is the youth pastor at a Chinese Church and he asked us to play on the youth worship team for the service! It was a lot of fun to play new songs and some in Chinese. We all went out to Chipotle for lunch.

Then Haley, who is the children's pastor at an international church, and I went to gather kids for church that evening. After church, we all ate at Jesse's parents house and ate Buffalo! It was such a good meal and fun to feel like family and tell stories.

Monday we went snowshoeing in Loveland, Colorado. There was a slight slope we were treking down and realized a little too late that the way back was entirely uphill. We were so exhausted and our thighs were burning. I wanted to sit down and gasp "Leave me...save yourselves!" but I refrained. We rewarded ourselves with a scrumptious homemade Adobo chicken recipe. I managed to stay under calories, thanks to the 600 burned while snowshoeing!

Tuesday, Jesse had to work so Haley took Matthew and me to the Celestial Tea Factory in Boulder. We got a free tour and unlimited free samples of teas! It was a lot of fun and perfect for a snowy day. We bought some tasty new teas, my favorite of which is Bengal Spice!

We ate at a local Pho place and headed to downtown Denver. We looked at some shops but were so cold in the wind and 18 degree temps that we called it quits and headed home. It was snowing and very cold! My car got very dirty and had icicles on it. It also froze into this awful looking pattern. I will post a picture, but I can't look at it without getting goosebumps all over. It's all those microbiology classes....

We ate dinner at home and had a delicious taco soup and cookies! We then traveled through the snow to our respective dates...boys to Guitar Center and the girls to Bubble Tea! We played our speed games and enjoyed our girl time. I don't know what the boys were doing...but they didn't spend money or do anything else dangerous ;)

I was getting a little discouraged that I was going waay over my calorie budget as indicated by evil red numbers and bars on my iphone app. Matthew encouraged me and said, "It's vacation, do your best and we can get back on track when we get home." He was right. I was here to enjoy myself, my friends and my time away from work. Sometimes that involves food. I was still careful but did not obsess over it for the rest of the trip.

Wednesday morning we packed up and toured the nearby neighborhood. Little ramblers were being bought, torn down and having HUGE million dollar homes built in their place. This has been going on for years and years, so there are now more mansions than ramblers, but the ramblers still exist! We then met Jesse for lunch and ate Colorado Style Pizza. Colorado style? Big crust you pour honey on! Yes, I am serious and it was lovely. We then sadly said our good-byes and headed towards Salt Lake City, Utah.

We went through the passes of Colorado and much enjoyed the scenery. We didn't plan lunches as well as we did in the beginning of the trip. Oops. We crossed into Utah and headed to a hotel just outside of Salt Lake City. In the morning we drove through the city and then off to Nevada. We came across the salt flats. Water would evaporate and leave miles of salt. We stopped and took cool pictures.

We crossed into Nevada and listened to The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis. The trip across Nevada was pretty dry and long, so we welcomed the site of civilization when we hit Reno. We turned south and soon were at our destination of Minden, Nevada. We ate dinner with the Johnsons and got a quick tour of Minden. It was great to see and catch up with them as they have been so influential in both our lives. We stayed in a nearby hotel and headed home!

We drove through California and happened to stop for lunch at the ORIGINAL Black Bear Diner. We shared a yummy summer harvest salad with fresh and dry fruit. We also shared a tri-tip dip which was also super wonderful. We then drove through Oregon and ate granola bars for dinner. We reached home at 11 at night and collapsed into our bed.

It was a wonderful trip. We got to see beautiful scenery from 9 different states and catch up with our amazing friends. I went over on my calories, but at least I am aware of how much I am consuming when I am NOT trying to be conscious of my eating. It was interesting to see how much every food "costs" and how quickly it adds up. Now we return to our normal lives and I am back to eating healthy and getting fit!