Hotel room eating

So, unless you are living under a rock, you've heard of the Thomas Fire currently raging (for over a week now) in the Ventura and Santa Barbara counties in Southern California.

It's now only 35% contained and is the 4th largest fire in CA history. 

And it's blowing up a crap ton of ash.

We are no novices to wildfires.  There have been many since we've lived here.  Generally they burn in the mountains, which are rugged, have a lot of fuel, and are hard to get to.  As we are in the midst of a many year drought, they are also dry.

A benefit to regular wildfires is that they slow, or stop, an existing one.  So the Thomas Fire has been virtually stopped in the back country, where it has come up against the 2007 Zaca Fire area (the 5th largest fire).

Unfortunately it is still burning on the east side and the west side.  On our side (the west), it still hasn't reached the burn area from the Tea Fire, so there's quite a bit more than can burn.  This is distressing for many reasons, including that I have friends in that area who have been evacuated.  Most of the time, these fires don't make it far into town (Painted Cave fire of 1990 being an exception).  It all depends on the winds.  The Santa Anas and Sundowners (strong winds out of the mountains towards the ocean) cause the fire to spread to populated areas.

Just yesterday, we had the first fatality of a fireman.  He leaves behind a pregnant wife and young daughter.  RIP.

So there's your little primer on So Cal wildfires.  As our house is nearer the ocean, we are reasonably safe.  A fire would either need to start in the city or burn through most of the city to get to us.

The ash and smoke is the major concern right now.  It's very hazardous, and officials have been giving out free N95 masks as protection.  People are told to stay indoors and wear masks when out of doors. Schools have been canceled since last Thursday - that's 7 days of school being cancelled completely, right before a two week + one day break.

That has left everyone scrambling. Scrambling for emergency childcare, scrambling for hotel rooms to get out of town, scrambling for "things to do" to get their kids to burn off energy indoors, scrambling for day trips to fresh air.

Last week's air quality was very very bad. I was home with the boys, working, on Thursday when they cancelled school on Friday.  My neighbor and I immediately made the decision to leave town.  She found an inn in Morro Bay (Morro Shores Inn and Suites).  I got the last room.  I texted the hubs, we packed the car with important papers, the computer hard drives, clothes, kids, and food.  And left.

I booked the weekend and then we played it by ear.  All told, we stayed away for 5 days.  We changed hotels on Sunday, and that day, unfortunately, the smoke and ash blew all the way to us up north (95 miles).  We had to spend much of the day indoors, in a hotel room.

For five nights and days, we ate out of hotel rooms, only eating out 5 times (which was plenty, my poor stomach just can't handle that). 

Eating out of hotel rooms can save money.  It can be healthier.  At first, it's like camping.  But eventually, it's a pain in the ass.

At the inn, we had a good sized mini fridge and microwave, and a small table with 2 chairs.  No free breakfast.  The table was great for food prep and letting the kids eat there.  We subsisted on bread with peanut butter, fruit, sandwiches, and leftovers from dinner (chicken fingers, pizza).  I took whatever we had in the fridge with us, so we also had some lettuce and carrots, fruit, peanut lime dip, leftover rice and broccoli, leftover chicken, avocados, and leftover roasted cauliflower.

We then made the move to a Hampton Inn.  There we had free breakfast.  There was a fridge but no microwave.  We had to use the microwave in the lobby.  There was ample desk space but only one chair.  That meant we prepped food and ate in shifts - giving the kids the chair. I pretty much ate on a bed all week (and worked on my laptop in bed one day too).

While this was a big money-saver - we spent about $55 on groceries that week but $280-300 eating out (a typical meal out for 4 was $60.  At least every meal had leftovers for lunch/ dinner the next day), it got old.  Washing dishes in a hotel room sucks.

We've done it enough to have it down to a science.  We have a picnic basket that we got as a wedding gift.  We filled it with plastic cups, silverware, our camping plates, and 3 plates and 2 bowls that are microwave safe.  We also had salt and pepper, paper towels, a wash cloth for washing dishes, dish soap, and 3 dish towels - one for letting the dishes drain on and the other 3 for drying.

We've been back home for a few days now.  My tummy is happier.  My sinuses are not.  The air quality is still bad (though not as bad as it was before).  The fire is getting closer.  We have child care for our little guy and the big kid is going to work with daddy or we are alternately working from home.  All in all, that little trip cost about $1000, so Merry Christmas to us.

I expect we will be making big use of the YMCA pool this week, and probably taking the kids to the trampoline place, the bowling alley, and the ice rink to burn off energy.

The cost of eating out

I recently found this link on a message board (MMM), about Americans and dining out:

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-07-26/first-time-americans-spend-more-eating-out-food-home

The graph shows that for the first time, Americans are spending more eating out than on groceries.  This doesn't surprise me at all.

I'll demonstrate:

I just got back from a week of vacation in Colorado.  We were in 2 hotels in 2 different cities.
- We got free breakfast at the hotel every morning.
- We had a mini-fridge in one hotel, and an efficiency kitchen at the other, so we had fruit, veg, and sandwich makings.
- We ate out 1 meal/ day or fewer.

- So meals out: 1. takeout pizza dinner.  2.  food truck Middle eastern sit-down lunch.  3.  Dinner out tacos/ burgers (only thing cheaper was the pizza)  4.  Dinner out pizza with friends.  5.  Very late lunch at a bistro.  6.  Ice cream.  7.  Burgers on the drive home from the airport

- Meals in: lunches: 6.  Dinners: 4  (there were 2 days we didn't eat out at all, had sandwiches for lunch and met our child-free friends at a park for a potluck so the kids could play).

So: 8 days. 6.5 meals out (ice cream is more of a snack), 10 meals "in" (groceries) and 7 meals free (breakfast)

Cost for 6.5 meals out: $292 = $45 each
Cost for 10 meals in: $100 = $10 each

That's more than 4x the cost to eat out than to eat something in the hotel room.  It doesn't take very many meals out for the cost of eating out to surpass the cost of groceries.

Total cost for the week for food: $400

The question is: what percentage of meals are "out"?

Vacation Post

This is just going to be a short compilation of our quick spring break (quick, because the kids were sick so much this weekend we had to only go for 1/2 week.  Not enough vacation time left.)

What did we do: Went to the snow

How did we save money:

- Winter gear - we have some from forever ago.  Bought the kids new boots ($20/each).  Which will probably never be worn again.  Will donate.

- Lodging - got sticker shock looking at Mammoth Mountain ($1280/ four nights, 1 BR condo, cheapest I could find.)  Googled, opted to go a little north to sleepy town of June Lake.  ($672/ four nights, 2 bedroom cabin duplex.)  Reverse Creek Lodge.  We really enjoyed this place.

- Food - took food and grocery shopped.  By far, the cheapest food was what we brought with us - mac and cheese, raw veggies, bagels, cheese & salami.  Next cheapest was shopping at the Vons in Mammoth (do NOT go at 6 pm on a Saturday!!)  But most of my shopping is NOT done in large stores, because they don't have the best deals.  Finally, when really out of something - the June Lake general store.  $5.49 for a loaf of bread, whee!!  But we needed to eat.  And they were really nice.

Approximate cost for food for the four days: $90.  Seems like a lot, but less than eating out for sure.  Plus way less pain and suffering than eating out with a four year old.

- Entertainment.  June Lake has a ski spot, which is much less populated and much smaller, and more family friendly than the southern neighbor, Mammoth.  It was also < 1 mile from the cabin.  It's also quite a bit cheaper - kids 12 and under ski for free.  And...we saved even MORE money by...not skiing at all.  People who ski regularly probably: 1. have their own gear.  2. Know how to get cheaper lift tickets on-line, or at Costco.  People like us, not so much.

We priced out skiing for 1 day at June Lake, and it looked like it would be approximately $600.  That's rental and lift ticket for hubby (who actually knows how to ski), rentals and lessons for the kids, and a lesson for me, who last went skiing in  1998.  The cost to do the same at Mammoth would have been quite a bit more expensive, at least $200.  We thought about it, but the June Lake website went down the night we were thinking about booking, so that sealed it.  

I realize that I'm not too old to learn a new skill. But...do I want to?  I mean, in the best of times, skiing is like golf - expensive.  And I live at the beach.  If I want to learn a new skill, shouldn't it be something like stand up paddle boarding, or rock climbing?  Something that doesn't require a 5 hour drive to accomplish?  Maybe if we go some day where we would ski for more than one day, it would be more worth it.  Cheaper cost per day.

In any event, the area is surrounded by the Inyo National Forest.  Our cabins had sleds that you could borrow.  The owners of the lodge directed us to a nice little spot with lots of places to sled.  And no snowmobilers!  So, our days went like this:

1.  Wake up.  For me, that usually meant "wake up on the couch".  Because the upstairs was HOT.  I would wake up at midnight sweating, and move downstairs where it was cooler.  I usually woke at 5:45 or 6.  Kid #1 woke up at the same time.  Kid #2 always ended up moving from his twin bed in the kid room to the king bed in the parent room.  So daddy and Kid #2 woke up at 7, and not always well rested.

2.  Drink coffee (instant, because we had it).  

3.  Make and eat breakfast - bagels, eggs, toast with nutella, toast with almond butter and bananas.

4.  Go for a hike.  There was a snow-filled hill behind the cabin area.  We climbed it, including some rock climbing.  At the top, we wandered through another cabin's yard (more than 50% of the homes here are second homes, usually only inhabited in the summer).  This got us to a road, and we wandered down some streets back to the cabin.  The hike usually took an hour, was about 0.75 miles (you know, hiking with a 4 year old) - and involved a LOT of snowball fights.

5.  Watch TV, make and eat lunch - sandwiches and raw veggies, or grilled cheese and soup.

6.  Do the dishes.  Go sledding (which involved a drive).  We sledded for an hour in the afternoon - more snowball fights, made a snowman one day.

7.  Go back to the cabin.  Warm up, have cocoa, make and eat dinner, watch more TV, maybe play a game, read.  Bed at 9.

Pics below!

Healthy Eating on Vacation - Part 5. The Emergency Hotel Stop

Now on to the final part of my "Healthy Eating on Vacation" series: when you have an emergency overnight at a hotel.

Our trip, while we were blessed with some of the best summer weather in the northeast, probably ever, was cursed on the way home.

The storms hit the day we were to fly home out of Albany.

The flight from Albany to Newark was delayed 2 hours, so we missed our 1 hour 45 minute connection.

At the airport in Albany, after a few calls to United, we were rebooked on a flight 2 hours after the first.  That flight was also delayed because there was a period of time with a ground stop at Newark.

The end result was that instead of touching down at 9:50 pm in LAX, we touched down at 1:35 am.
- We  missed the last shuttle to the hotel where our car was parked
- Husband and older child took a cab while I waited at baggage claim with tired/ sleepy toddler and bags
- We pulled out of the airport at 3 am finally.  At this point, my spouse and I had been awake for 23 hours.  While we'd lucked out on our new long 5.25 hour flight with seats in Economy Plus (more leg room), we did NOT luck out in that we were the row in front of the emergency exit, and thus could not recline.  So no napping on the plane.
- The 2 or 3 hotels we tried to call in the LAX area were already booked.
- We headed north, and after we hit the 101, I called (and eventually connected) with a Hampton Inn and Suites in Thousand Oaks.

We crawled into the king bed (all 4 of us) at 4 am.  At this point, the parents had zero sleep in 24 hours, and the kids had 6 hours each (5 on the plane and 1 in the car).

At 6 am the kids awoke, and at 6:30 am I gave up on sleeping because they were awake, and I took them to breakfast.

Hampton Inn and Suites have similar breakfasts in every hotel that I've ever stayed in.  And it's really our hotel of choice when we travel.  Generally spacious, often a fridge/ microwave.  Breakfast and a pool.

So how do you eat healthy and stick to an eating plan in a Hampton Inn?  Here are some options, depending on your eating plan.  They have three hot options: one egg, one meat, and one carb.

General/ clean eating:
- eggs
- whole wheat toast
- oatmeal (nuts as a topping)
- fresh fruit
- yogurt (there is sugar in the yogurt)

Paleo/ Primal:
- eggs (always an egg dish)
- bacon (depending on the day)
- fruit
- nuts from the oatmeal bar

Vegan
- oatmeal (toppings available include nuts)
- fresh fruit
- toast

Gluten free (may have to be careful on the preparation of the items)
- fresh fruit
- eggs
- bacon
- potatoes (this is a sometimes item)

21-day fix:
- eggs (red)
- fruit (purple)
- toast (yellow)
- butter (tsp)
- oatmeal (yellow)
- nuts (orange or blue)

Other, less healthy (but yummy, and yes, I did have them) options are:
muffins
make-your-own waffles
bagels and cream cheese
a variety of breads to toast
pancakes or french toast
cold cereal
fruit juices
coffee and tea

My children both ate their weight in bacon (seriously!)  But it kept them busy  while daddy slept a little longer.

Healthy Eating on Vacation - Part 3. Train travel

Welcome to Part 3 of my Healthy Eating on Vacation series - Train travel.

Mid-way through our trip, we took a train from my family's to my in-laws house.

This involved:
1.  2 hour drive to the "big city" (Erie)
2.  Dinner in Erie
3.  Overnight hotel stay
4.  Breakfast at McDonald's (included in the hotel stay)
5.  Train trip to Upstate NY

Train travel is much like airplane travel.  The food on Amtrak sucks (I know this by experience).  Luckily, this was a short trip - supposed to be 6 hours (was actually 7 due to construction).  I've been on 24 hour trips before...no fun in the food department.

This trip had a few new challenges:
1.  We had to carry all our bags with us (no checked bags)
2.  We were leaving from a hotel room, not from home. That limits your food choices.
3.  We were in the city for dinner, with no kitchen

Let's start with step 1: dinner.  Erie is like any other city, with many restaurants and grocery stores.  I knew that my stepdad would want to have dinner at a restaurant, and truthfully - we hadn't eaten out all trip at that point.  I chose Applebees, because I know they have paleo-friendly, lower calorie options.  I also know that they have meals that my stepdad likes.

In general, I avoid sit-down restaurants with the kids because the 3 year old cannot sit still.  And in fact, he didn't.  When his older brother was 2 to 4, we didn't eat out either.

I ordered the Napa chicken with portobellos.  I have to say, it was kind of bland and overcooked.  But my 3 year old loved it.  So much for choosing healthy - I ended up eating one of his mini-sliders. I tried to talk him into getting chicken, because he likes chicken, but NO.  (Step #1 of a good mom, always order something that your kid likes.  Step #2 be willing to trade with him.)

From there we went back to the hotel to go to bed.  We had a room with 2 double beds.  My stepdad was next door.  We all slept great!  Okay, I lie.  My toddler fell out of the bed.  So my husband joined us so we could trap him.  Two adults, one toddler, in a full bed.  And the toddler did NOT want to share, so he woke up every half hour to push, kick, and complain.

Train left at 7 am.  So we were up at 5 am.  We went to McDonald's for breakfast.  I know, I know.  But this particular hotel had no breakfast, but they gave you a voucher to the McD's across the parking lot.  Again, you have to be flexible.  Big boy ordered pancakes, but only ate one.  Toddler ate the other one.  I had a coffee (my second, the first was from the hotel office), and an Egg McMuffin, because I figured it would be filling.

Next thing we did is pack up.  This particular room had a fridge.  I'd taken some snacks in a cooler up with us.  This is a good tip - your food choices expand when you have access to refrigeration.  It was very nice of my stepdad to drive us up and stay up overnight to take us to the station.

Snacks from the fridge that we packed up:
1.  string cheese
2.  hard boiled eggs - I peeled them at the hotel and put them in a baggie with salt and pepper
3.  apples
4.  raw veggies again (cucumber, carrots mostly)

Other snacks:
Granola bars
Nuts
2 small bags of M&Ms from grandpa's house.  That candy did come in handy.  My newly potty trained toddler is afraid of public restrooms (can you blame him?) His reward for using the train bathroom was the M&M's.
Water bottles

So my meals looked like this:
Breakfast: egg McMuffin
Snack: shakeo protein shake (I just made it and shook it up and drank it on the way to the train station)
Lunch/snacks on the train: Quest bar, raw veggies, apple, eggs, string cheese.
Dinner: birthday party at my MILs house!  Did I mention that we were traveling on hubby's birthday?

Again, my husband and kids bought some additional snacks, coffee, water, and lemonade from the train.

All in all the 7 hour trip wasn't too bad.  Amtrak seats are pretty comfy and spacious. The kids napped, watched movies, colored, played games on the pads.  We enjoyed the sights, the brief view of the lake.  We had to stop 2x for construction, which made us an hour late.

Probably the most exciting/ scary/ stupid part was watching people at the Erie station.  There was a cargo train that went by before the passenger train.  About 1/4 mile down the tracks there were two people purposely standing in front of the train and jumping out at the last minute.  For both trains.  I hope they were arrested.  Sometimes I think about Darwin, but really you have to feel bad for the guys driving the train.

Have you ever traveled by train?  Do you have any other tips on packing food for the train?

Healthy Eating on Vacation - Part 2. When you are the cook

Welcome to Part 2 of my series: Eating Healthy on Vacation.

Part 2 covers "When you are the cook", aka "When you have control".

Let's face it, when you are cooking at home, you have control over what goes into your food and what you eat.  Traveling has a whole other set of problems.  I went over my method of controlling my food on an 18-hour day of driving and flights (basically, take all your own food).  Now I'm going to review my methods when I'm the cook.

We spent a week with my stepfather.  He doesn't cook, so I did the cooking. This is a good thing!  However I had to navigate some picky eating - his and mine.  And my brother's family was over for dinner a couple of times, resulting in my cooking for 8 or 9 people.  This wasn't too terrible because I normally batch-cook anyway.  There were just no leftovers.

The difficulty in a new place is the type and quality of food.  My options were Walmart and... Walmart.  (That's not totally true, there is a farmstand and family gardens.)  My stepdad insisted on buying vegetables ahead of time, which is hard when he doesn't eat them. I am picky about my veggies.  I get very high quality in California (hello CSA!)  So when in other places, I am likely to look at the veggies, and the price, and make choices.  For example, I may go in looking for cucumbers and peppers, but leave with cauliflower and carrots, because they look better.

That meant I was doing a LOT of winging it with what he got.  He generally wasn't interested in the veggies himself, so I tried to make what we had tasty.  Here's what I made:

raw veggies: peppers, carrots, cucumbers (from his and my sister's gardens) with hummus
Greek salad (onion, peppers, cucumber, olives, tomatoes)
Sauteed frozen broccoli
Sauerkraut and kielbasa (homemade sauerkraut from my BIL!)
Quesadillas
Baked chicken tenders with hashbrowns
Salad

I also went to a family party (took the Greek salad to it). My siblings brought lots of yummy foods, homemade mostly.  I tend to give myself one meal "off" a week, so I don't need to stress in that situation.  And I didn't!  I also have a bunch of recipes saved for later.  There was cowboy beans, pulled pork, jalapeno dip, corn pudding, pie, meatball sandwiches, veggies and hummus, salads...

The big difficulty during this week was the junk food - candy, cookies, chips, gatorade, soda, beer.  (This was also a challenge for the second half of the trip.)  It's hard to say no to it all the time, and my 9 year old is a gatorade fiend (we almost NEVER buy it).  I ended up hiding the candy so that they didn't know about it, and they only really had chips or cookies a couple of times.  I admit to a beer (or a few) and some sodas.  The liquid calories were the killer all around, especially gatorade for the big kiddo.  The little one was fine with water and milk.

It's hard to say no when it is there!  This is why my #1 recommendation for anyone trying to lose weight or be healthy is this - KEEP IT OUT OF THE HOUSE.   Now, there are some things that I didn't realize would even be tempting - like the soda! I don't drink it anymore.  But it was.  Seriously tempting.  Because: there it is, staring at you.

Many people don't want to "deprive" their spouse or kids of the junk food, so they still buy it, and are still tempted.  I say "what??"  I mean the spouse and kids can get it EVERYWHERE - so let them eat it out of the house!  Not stocking it doesn't mean they never get it.

All in all, I did pretty well this week.  It's nice when you have control.  Then, when it's hot out, you can enjoy a little ice cream.

Healthy Eating On Vacation - Part 1. The all-day plane travel

If you are a friend, or follow me on FB or Instagram, then you know my family recently traveled on summer vacation.

This was the year that we traveled to visit our families on the opposite side of the country, for two weeks.  The vacation started with one VERY long day.  We left the house around 5 or 5:30 am, drove two hours to Los Angeles, parked the car and took a shuttle to the airport.

Next up was two 3 to 3.5 hour flights, with a short layover in between.  Then another 2 hour drive to my family's house (luckily my stepfather picked us up AND borrowed an Explorer from his brother).

So, how do you eat healthy traveling all day?  It can be tricky.  You can buy food in the airport, but it is rarely healthy.  If you find healthy food, it's expensive (I paid $7.64 for 2 bottles of water at LAX).  You can find salads, but I find that many salads from "elsewhere" make me sick - as if they don't wash the greens first.  My niece travels for business and she carries ALL her own food, often for 3 full days - otherwise she'll go off plan.  (You can read her blog here.)  That's a little much for me, and I'm not sure how well the food would keep when traveling for as long as we did.  (By the time we made it to the house, we'd been "on the road" for 18 hours).

It's of course frugal to bring your own food, also.

Well let's start with my parameters.  First of all, my breakfast is pretty much shakeology every day.  I prefer to blend it with ice and banana.  On the long flight, that's what I did - made it, chugged it, and rinsed out my container and packed it before we left.

I'd really planned on staying "on track" with the 21 day fix for the full trip.  Here was my loose plan on the first travel day:

Breakfast: Shakeo w/ banana (1 red, 1 purple)
Snack in the car: 2 hard boiled eggs, Mary's gone crackers (1 red, 1 yellow)
Lunch at LAX: Vega One shake, apple, raw veggies (1 red, 1 purple 1 green) (I chose Vega One because they mix will with just ice and water)
Snack on the plane: Cashews and cucumber/tomato salad (1 orange, 1 green)
Dinner in Houston: Quest protein bar and more veggies (1 red, 1 green)
Snack: Kind bar: (1 blue, 1 tsp)

I did pretty well, but honestly don't remember exactly what I ate.  We spent a couple of hours or more at the United Club in LAX.  They had nice breakfast options (and good coffee), so I may have had part of a bagel.  They had switched over to lunch before we left.  For my lunch I had packed a tomato and cucumber salad - the lunch offered included hummus and kalamata olives, so I took some of the olives to add to my salad and some hummus to eat with my veggies later.  I also tossed some cheese cubes in my container to go with my crackers.

Of course I drank a ton of water, but carefully timed because you don't want to be stuck on a plane having to pee when the seat belt light is on.  Which the boys and I BOTH had to do when we weren't allowed up.  When the light went off again, yes I went to the bathroom FIRST.  But on the other hand, I let my old son pee in a bottle, while I held a blanket to cover him.  Those $7 bottles of water came in handy.

Bonus: they have bubble water/ seltzer as an option now on United flights, which beats juice/ soda for me.

More about the Vega One: I got the vanilla chai based on online recommendations, and it was yucky. And now I have 28 more of them.  I think I may try to blend them with blueberries, and see if it gets better.  Or bananas.  Or donate them.  Because, yuck.

So, what did my family eat?  Well, I wish I'd taken a picture.  But I didn't.  Each family member got two small baggies with their name on them.
One had raw veggies (carrots, snap peas, cucumber, peppers)
One had other snacks, like nuts, granola bars, or a small chocolate bar.
Each family member also had an apple.
I also took string cheese that I'd frozen so it would defrost as we went.

I did not worry about lunch and dinner for the family.  They ate at the airports.  It's too much work to worry about me AND them, and they like eating out anyway.  Honestly, I don't even remember what they ate at the airports, aside from the free food in the United Club.

In summary, recommendations for healthy eating for long plane travel:
1.  For produce, pack as many fruits and veggies as you'd normally eat during that time.
2.  Fruit: pick things that keep well: apples, oranges - not bananas that mush easily.  Berries or melon in a tupperware container will be good too, and more of a "treat" (with a plastic fork).
3.  Vegetables: raw is your friend. Maybe you can find hummus at the airport.  Chopped salads are great, especially ones that you can pre-dress, like cucumber or bean salads or kale salads.  Depending on how long you are waiting to eat them, I'd avoid dairy.
4.  Pre-pack in baggies or containers with everyone's name, so you don't forget anyone.
5.  Make sure to pack "treats" (100 calorie chocolate bars for us) for the trip.
6.  Bring an empty water bottle for each person (I paid $7.64 for 2 bottles of water at LAX).
7.  Bring some protein - hard boiled eggs, string cheese, nuts.  You can bring tuna packets but do NOT eat those on the plane!
8.  Eat the perishable foods FIRST.  Early in the day you'll be eating the eggs and cheese and berries.  Later in the day you'll be eating apples and nuts.
9.  For inspiration, pretend like you are camping without refrigeration
10.  Pack an "emergency" snack bag, in addition to bags for each family member.  I cannot tell you how many times we have been traveling and we ended up running between flights - so NO time to get food in the airport.  Then, on the next flight, we'd end up in the back of the plane - they would run out of food for sale before they got to us.  My emergency snack bags usually have nuts, fruit, candy, granola bars, crackers.

Let me know in the comments if you have any more tips!

Some Follow-up on The Pyramid and vacation review

Wow, some great comments on my last post!  Just some notes:

I do not mean to bash grains. I love grains.  I think whole grains are a healthy food. I don't even think white bread is going to kill you.  Millions of Frenchmen and women (who eat croissants), can't be wrong, right?  I think most foods belong in a healthy diet (in moderation), but we have to figure out what "in moderation" is?  (Note: it's probably not daily.)

In fact, one of my favorite recent reads is The Blue Zones that chronicles the diet and lifestyle of the areas of the world with the most centenarians.  Several of the areas eat whole grains.  Corn tortillas, brown rice.

You will probably never see me go full-on Paleo or Primal because I love grains and beans.  I've been very nearly vegetarian on many occasions. I have a shelf full of vegetarian and vegan cookbooks.

The issue I have is the Food Pyramid, and it's specification that we eat 6 servings (6-11 actually) of grains per day.  Prior to it's release, we had "Basic 4".  Well, for the last 20+ years, that's what I've based by eating habits around.  Okay, to be honest, I didn't think much about what I ate until I woke up one day at 31 weighing 182 pounds.  But that year, 2002, I put a lot of effort into losing weight via Weight Watchers, and have done really well maintaining that weight loss since.  (With two excursions due to having babies.)

Over the years I've "control-checked" my diet with weight watchers, a dietitian, my fitness pal. or the USDA website,  The thing they have in common is the Food Pyramid.

When I was younger, it was  no problem.
When I was nearing 40 and training for races (half marathons), it was no problem.
When I had a baby at 42, and had a couple of years of lack of sleep, plus stress (layoffs at work), plus injuries (cannot do high impact exercise anymore) = problem.

I'm coming to terms with the fact that I cannot eat that much grain anymore, and still lose weight.  I am  not giving up grain - still eating 2 servings per day - generally a piece of toast for breakfast and perhaps 1/2 c. rice or quinoa for dinner, or maybe crackers in my soup.

What I find interesting about the whole thing is how personal it becomes.  Some people never have a weight problem, and I find it's hard for them to understand.  Several years ago I read Refuse to Regain by Dr. Barbara Berkeley (an obesity doctor).  One thing that she has learned in  her work is that people who are FOW (formerly overweight) metabolize food differently than people who were NOW (never overweight).  Particularly carbs.  So her recommendation for people to maintain their weight loss is to restrict carbohydrates. If you've been overweight, your body stores them more efficiently - you permanently changed how your body works.  (Depressing, huh?)

When I read the book I was happily maintaining my weight loss (this is pre baby#2), so I figured that I was never hugely obese, so I didn't need to restrict carbs like that.  I had some inklings however - I had one friend who I walked a lot with on weekends.  When she was about 62 I noted how trim she'd always been.  She said "I don't really eat that many carbs".  She has oatmeal for breakfast and maybe the occasional bit of rice or potato for dinner.

Just last year I attended a women's retreat run by a personal chef and a personal trainer.  The chef, who is 60, said "well once you are over 40, if you want to maintain a healthy weight, you cannot eat more than X number of carbs per day" (I wrote it down, but do not remember the number.)  I ignored her, of course, because - Food Pyramid.

I have been very resistant to the idea of restricting carbs - but in reality, I'm not really "restricting". I still eat 2 cups of fruit per day.  Yogurt.  Lots of vegetables.  Beans several times per week.  Grains and/or potatoes 2 times a day.  I've just now started to realize that 6 servings a day, at my exercise level and age, is not doable.  And I've also found out that 6 servings a day is a MADE UP NUMBER BASED ON NO SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE.

Okay, on to the camping review.  We camped 2 nights nearby - El Capitan SB.  We booked in June and there was literally ONE site available.  Man, we got a GREAT one!  One neighbor, lots of shade, lots of space for the kids to run, not TOO close to the RR tracks (but let's face it, the whole campground is near the RR tracks), not near the ocean/cliffs/creek/roads (I have a toddler).

The kids had a great time sleeping in the tent (though the 2 year old slept with me a LOT), eating at a picnic table, and playing at the beach and in the waves.  We used our  new campstove that heats water for coffee WAY faster.

And the big hits foodwise?  Nachos (tortilla chips, shredded cheese, and canned chili on top, with guacamole), and hard boiled eggs.  We ran out of eggs.

Beach

Campstove

Zucchini bread and instant coffee

Our picnic basket which is GREAT for camping

Inside of the basket

The tent

Ahhh

Vacation Packing

Am I one of the few crazy people who packs food for vacations?  And I mean real food, not just snacks or sandwiches.  Well, The Prudent Homemaker does - check out her blog for her recent summary of their road trip to a wedding.

A friend of mine gave me a revelation when she mentioned she pre-cooked food for a camping trip.  I tend to take easy-to-cook things for camping.  And I pre-cook food on the weekend.  Why did this not occur to me?

So we are headed out on a road trip (about 4 hours away), and I have been busy prepping food.  Now, why would I do that?  Isn't eating out part of vacation?  I would say, most certainly, yes.  But things have changed over the last few years:

1.  I have a toddler.  It is not fun to eat out with a toddler who cannot sit still.  Age 2 to 4?  Not fun.
2.  I have an 8 year old.  He's a fan of McDonald's, Chik-fil-a, Chipotle, but doesn't like "fancy food" because it "makes him sick".  (i.e., he doesn't have the patience to sit an order a meal and wait for it.)
3.  I have two kids.  I hate to repeat myself, but eating out with them is not fun.  They want their food NOW.  And it's expensive.
4.  I have a weight problem.  Generally food that you eat out is not as healthy as you could make yourself.
5.  Eating out is expensive.

So we are going out of town for four days.  The first two nights we are in a nice hotel with a microwave and a mini-fridge.  We get free breakfast.   The second two nights we are in a hotel with a fridge.  No microwave.  Husband upgraded for $10/day total for four breakfasts.

Here's the general plan, I tried not to overdo it.

I packed enough sandwiches, eggs, bread, fruit and veg for two lunches.
I packed spaghetti and meatballs for one dinner (out of 4). Depending on timing, we can probably grab dinner at a grocery store.

Generally, I could probably plan to pack enough food for lunch and dinner all four days, but my family would probably protest.  And it's my vacation too - I don't relish washing dishes in hotel bathroom sink.  So I opted for about 1/3 of the meals either already packed or purchased at a grocery store, 1/3 will be free breakfast, 1/3 out.

This is just a sampling of what we have in store:

Fast and Easy Meal for a busy day - crock pot! And, vacation budget.

So, I took a day off work this week to take the family to the water park.  We got sunburned.  (Sunscreen washed off, and you know that white stripe you get from your flip flops on your feet?  Yeah, mine's red now.  So our 4th?  Not going to the beach.  Even though the water is supposedly SO WARM this year.)

Before we left, I decided to throw some food in the crock pot.  I had these raw chicken tenders in the freezer from Trader Joe's.  I found a great recipe for sesame honey chicken. But decided it would be MUCH easier to just use the TJ's Island Soyaki.  So, two ingredients: chicken, and TJ's sauce (which, you know, is made of a bunch of ingredients.  I realize this.)

Cook on low all day.  Now, with small tenders, they got overcooked.  But they were tasty (bone in or dark meat or larger pieces would be better).

When we got home, late, I got out the rice cooker.  But our rice cooker, and brown rice = 1.5 hours.  Instead, I pulled out my trusty Pressure Cooker cookbook from Lorna Sass.  I toasted up the rice, added water, salt, and voila!  45 minutes later (including heat up and cool down) rice is done.  Simple steamed broccoli finished the meal.  The boys were SO HUNGRY they mowed through it, including the toddler - he was mostly into the rice and broccoli, opposite of normal for my little meat lover.

The total cost for the water park was about $100 for 5 people (we took a friend).  Entry into the water park was $12/person, plus $10 for parking = $70.  We picked up sandwiches on the way, took bottled water and snacks - that was about $30.  It's a fairly pricey day.

As far as vacation days though, it's not too bad.  I used to be a lover of great vacations - Hawaii was my friend!  But with kids, it's different.  I read recently that mothers don't take vacations, they take trips.  So true.

When it comes to vacations, I now try to substitute cheaper options.  I love Hawaii - why?  Pool, beach, tropics.  How do I get that cheaper?  Go to the beach at home, in the summer.  Water park will take the place of the pool.  Or perhaps take a vacation to San Diego - save yourself the $800/person airfare.

So the water park is a substitute for Disneyland or Hawaii, not a regular thing.  Hiking or the zoo is a substitute for day trips to the water park...a slow decrease in the expense of the vacations.  As opposed to pre-kid days, when they get pricier and pricier!

Vacation Eats

It's no secret that I don't like to eat out much on vacation.  When I go, I try to balance staying in places with kitchens (like family's houses, condos) or places where I can to SOME cooking (like a hotel room with a fridge/microwave, or camping).  This vacation was very similar.  We did eat out some here and there (definitely a lot towards the end of the trip because I got sick as a dog - my throat is so sore that I want to cry).

We visited with friends in the Bay Area (SF Bay Area, that is).  There was a little bit of eating out/take out, and some cooking dinner - our friends in Mountain View built their own wood burning pizza oven...okay, that makes good stuff.  Then it was offf to Yosemite and we rented a house, and we cooked.  I have to say, though it was challenging and I was tired, I very carefully planned our meals before I left (for Yosemite specifically, since there are no nearby grocery stores), and it was worth it.  I took a minimal amount of food and brought home very little.  Usually, I pack WAY too much.

Broccoli from the CSA, mac and cheese

Pancakes (from a mix that does not require eggs) with strawberries (from the Mtn View farmer's mkt) and bananas.

Sunflower seed butter and jam sandwiches (with apples and carrots!)

Rice, canned chili, cheese, avo (brought from home), and more CSA broccoli

More pancakes, and I took a page from Biz's book and sauteed the fruit to sweeten it a bit

Well, I'm sick and it's 3 am and I have insomnia, so that's all you get from me right now.  Maybe I'll share my vacationing philosophy more at a later date.  Going to try to read a bit and maybe sleep some more.

Camping! Food and fun

So over the long holiday weekend, we drove to Joshua Tree National Park to go camping.  This is a 4 to 6 hour trip, depending on which way you go, the traffic, and the number of potty stops.  This is our 4th trip to go camping there.  Back in the late 90's, spouse and I took a driving tour of the southwest, which included a hotel night in Kingman, camping at the Grand Canyon, a B&B in Sedona, a friend's house in Santa Fe, a motel in Alamagordo, family's house in Tucson, and camping in Joshua Tree.

The last 3 trips have been the last 3 years with our friends and neighbors.  The first time, I felt like a newbie and relied on them a lot for guidance.  This last time, I felt like an old pro - in part because we went camping last summer to the Grand Canyon.  Practice does make perfect!

To start, my camping food tends to be cold or "just add water".  Simple things like PB&J, carrots and apples, granola bars, nuts, chocolate.  The just add water list includes instant oatmeal or cup o noodles (yes, I know they have MSG, but it's not a staple in my diet I swear).  People have different ideas of "camping food", and it will depend on your experience, location, and gear.  People who have campers, RV's or vans with stoves and fridges might have to make very few adjustments to their regular diet (only the amount they can store).  In fact, I'd wager that 1/2 of the campsites had RV's, and 90% of them did not even use the picnic table, grill, or campfire.  People who only  have a cooler and no way to cook, are going cold.

We fall in the middle.  We have a cooler, and a thermoelectric cooler (this was a new purchase).  And it was butt cold.  So this expanded our repertoire to other foods like eggs, bacon, milk, and cheese.  The fact that it was butt cold means that I could take potatoes and onions and bread, and they would keep well in the car (no cooler).  We also have a propane grill (very small one).

On this trip, we tried some new things.  I tried my hand at "foil packet cooking" over the campfire.  I must say that it turned out very well.  It helps that my husband had to camp out for work a few weeks before and had some tips.  I cooked up some potatoes, onions, rosemary, peppers, and tofurkey sausages, with spices.  Lots of olive oil.  Would have been better without the sausages.

Before:

After (with some cheese on top)

I also tried cooking bacon and eggs on the propane grill.  I learned that these cook better directly on the lower rack, but at a low temp.  This also goes for stovetop rice or noodles - which we cooked on the fire also.  I threw some fresh broccoli from the CSA in with the cheesy rice, and it was delish.

I also  made a lot of hot cocoa and hot tea, and discovered these instant packets of Starbucks coffee.  We had a night of noodles, veggies, and hot dogs (not for me, but for the rest).

All in all, it was quite a good experience, despite the upper 20's weather in a tent at night.  Camping can be a frugal and fun adventure.  This trip itself involved:

Gas: $81

Entrance to the park: $15

- 3 nights camping one site: $10x3

- 2 nights camping 2nd site: $10x2

- Minus cost of sharing: $20 (we shared our 2nd site with others the last 2 nights.  We needed a space to put the Taj Mahal tent for the visiting family - they needed a place to pop up a tent and the fire pit/table).

Total cost of 3 nights: $30.  Which is what it would cost if we went by ourselves.

Propane: $12

Water: $15 (you have to take in all your water in JT)

Firewood: $40 (definitely needed on this trip!)

Lunch on the way there: $20

Total: $213 for 4 days, 3 nights.  A pretty cheap vacation!

Sometime later, I hope to go over the summary of the "gear" that we have/used. We bought a few things in preparation for this trip.   I'll have to calculate "cost per use".  A quick back-of-the-envelope calculation shows we have spent about $1080 on camping gear (a lot of our gear came as gifts), and more than half of that is the Thule box/rack system for on top of our car.



Camping Review!

We had a great time, if a little bit of a hot time.  We had a lot of packaged food and too much McDonalds, but also managed to get some produce in by stopping at the grocery store a couple of times.  My son ate an entire cantaloupe as a snack one after noon.

Here are some photos from our trip!

Our campsite at Mather Campground

Dinner night #1

My birthday wine

The Grand Canyon

Me and Kiddo on hike along the rim.  I have hat head.

Lake Powell from the Utah side

Trip down Colorado River from Page

Doesn't everyone paint their toenails on vacation?