Wisconsin Road Trip Days 5, 6 and 7!

The final stretch (I feel like I've been dragging this out, but I'm glad I'm taking the time to write this all down because it's only been a month since the trip and some of the details are already getting hazy.)

Anyway! Day 5 started in Sterling, CO. We headed out early knowing that this would by far be our longest day of driving. Our destination for the end of the day was Des Moines, Iowa which meant we had to travel through the rest of Colorado, all the way through Nebraska and through a good chunk of Iowa too. Day 5 was totally uneventful. Quick thoughts:

• I wanted to cry leaving Colorado
• The entire state of Nebraska smelled like popcorn 
• Gas stations have showers? 
• Where can I get a damn salad?!

We finally got to Des Moines where we checked into our hotel and had dinner in the hotel's restaurant. It was a Thursday night and the hotel was anything but poppin'. I had some Italian Wedding soup which was kinda meh but it filled me up. We decided to walk a few blocks to a liquor store for a bottle of wine and some ice cream. We wound up with a bottle of Malibu and headed back to the hotel to watch Clueless. Pretty uneventful day! 

Des Moines at dawn

...

The next day we drove the last 4 hours to Madison! We passed by Em's new office (which was so cool!) and then headed to her apartment to check it out and wait for the movers to arrive. While we were waiting, we decided to go to Culver's because everyone told of us we had to try the cheese curds. They were good, but I didn't expect them to be fried!

The view from Em's new place

We spent the rest of the day unloading boxes and assembling furniture. We headed out to a place that specifically specialized in salads because we were all craving some greens. My salad was good, but the shrimp in it tasted a little fishy for my taste. We still had room for dessert so we headed to UW Madison for some delicious ice cream. The University was bustling with people, live music and lots of locals out enjoying their Friday night. It was nice to be back in a city! 

Saturday morning we packed up and headed to Chicago so that L could be dropped off at her uncle's and I could catch my plane back to the homeland. We stopped in downtown Madison on our way out of town to visit the Taste of Madison foodie fest and pick up some non-fried cheese curds to bring home. Once on the road again we realized that there are so many toll roads in Illinois! It took us about an hour longer to get to Chicago than we anticipated so by the time we got the airport, I jumped out of the car, grabbed my bags and made a mad dash to security. I barely got to say goodbye to Em which made me weirdly emotional. By the time I got to the TSA agent at security there were tears running down my cheeks and I was a total wreck. 

Cheese curds from Taste of Madison! 

I made it to my gate on time, and listened to some Ed Sheeran on the flight to Denver. The airport was super dead so I grabbed a bowl of broccoli cheese soup and ate dinner while I waited to board my last flight. I had a bit of a head ache (this becomes important in a minute) so I took some ibuprofen and hung out with my book. 

Before things got ugly... 

All was fine and good until about 30 minutes into the flight. I started feeling terribly nauseous and my head was killing me. (Warning: this gets a little graphic) I don't know if it was altitude sickness or food poisoning or a combination of both, but about 20 minutes before we landed, I couldn't hold it in any more. Of course there was no barf bag in the seat back pocket so I wound up puking in my canvas bag that I had stowed under my seat. I felt so awful for the people next to me. I was crying and rocking back and forth trying not to get sick again. 

Finally we landed and I got off the plane in San Francisco (did I mention I was sitting in the very back row in the window seat...) I ran to the bathroom to clean myself up as best I could. I saw my Dad as I was walking up to arrivals and I just fell into his arms and started sobbing. The poor guy hugged me tight even though I can assure you I smelled awful and was toting a bag of... well yeah, I won't go over that again. 

Anyway, I made it back to tell the tale and I'm sure looking forward to more road trips in the future... Like back to Colorado please!! 

Wisconsin Road Trip Day 4

Note: Day 4 was probably my favorite day of the whole trip so I'm dedicating an entire post to it. 

Before leaving Parachute, we got new wiper blades which made me feel exponentially better about driving through potential thunderstorms. While Emily was across the street at the mechanic, Linnea and I planned what we thought would be a short one mile hike in Glenwood Springs, CO at Hanging Lake.

View from the parking lot. It was gorgeous! 

L taking photos again :) 

We got to the trail head and realized that the hike which we thought would take us no more than an hour, was actually all uphill on some uneven terrain. We started the hike, and quickly my head really started bothering me. I get bad migraines fairly frequently so I tried to push through it, but at the half mile mark I had this incredibly intense pain in my temple and I started to feel sick. I didn't want to hold my friends back so I just took a seat and decided to wait for them.

Subtle selfies on the side of the trail

I started to get a little bit worried when one of the other hikers who had gone up right after E&L came back down the trail. It started to drizzle and my head wasn't hurting so badly anymore so I decided to keep walking. Less than 10 minutes after that drizzle it started to POUR. The trail was quickly turning into a river. I finally found the girls and at that point everyone was making a mad dash back to the parking lot. It was quite the adventure!

And of course it stopped raining as soon as we got back to the car.

Colorado was by far our favorite state, so we wanted to spend as much time there as possible. We stopped at a visitor center in Vail, CO to find out if there were any short trails in the area, but when we got out of the car we were greeted by a huge boom of thunder. We scrapped the hiking plan and decided to head to the AlpenRose for an early dinner. Emily went to move the car while Linnea and I got caught up in a freak hail storm. For a California kid, all these crazy weather conditions were really keeping me on my toes.

So much rain! 

Crazy, crazy hail. I thought it was gonna snow!

Cheese plate at the AlpenRose

Käse schnitzel 

Totally can't remember what this is called but Linnea said she's had it several times with her boyfriend's German family.

The whole trip we really wanted to see a moose or a buffalo... this was the closest we got.

We spent our second night close to the border of Nebraska so we could embark on our longest day of driving the next morning.

Part 3, coming up next!

Spaghetti Sqaush

The past few days have been very mellow around here so I've been doing a little more cooking than usual. Yesterday I made a yellow tofu curry with brown rice, which was good but it wasn't great. I'll have to keep working on that recipe.

A few days ago when I went to the store, I saw a spaghetti squash. I've never made a spaghetti squash before, but I figured since I had some time on my hands, I'd do some experimenting.

According to various Pinterest pins, there are several ways to cook a spaghetti squash, but theoretically the best way to do it is to cut it horizontally into rounds rather than vertically. The fibers grow circularly inside the skin so the length is more similar to actual spaghetti noodles. It was a little hard to cut up, but once I managed that I threw in the oven at 350 (my oven temp runs really hot) with a little bit of olive oil, salt and pepper. And this was what it looked like after I roasted it for 40 minutes and took a fork to it!

Not too shabby eh?

While the squash was roasting, I threw together a veggie packed sauce because I was a little worried that the squash might be kind of bland (I was very wrong, but the sauce was sooo good. No regrets!) I sautéed half a white onion, added some zucchini, sliced mushrooms and cubed tofu. I added half a jar of traditional Ragu sauce and let it simmer until my squash was done. 

Pretty similar to spaghetti noodles right? 

The final product!

This meal was great and tasted wonderful in leftover form as well. Because I was only cooking for one (that sounds so depressing), I made one squash last for four meals (not so depressing). Cheap, delicious and filling!

Wisconsin Road Trip: Days 1, 2, and 3!

Hello again!

Two days in a row of blogging: it must still be summer ;)

So a couple weeks ago, myself and two friends embarked on a road trip that would eventually lead us to Madison, Wisconsin. Emily, my first friend in college (aside from my roommate that is), got a new job there after graduating a year early and we thought it would be a good excuse to do a little country exploration. We all met up in Davis, California which is about sixty miles from my parents house. From there we drove to Reno, Nevada which was only three hours away, but I have some good friends there who let us crash on their couch (thanks Matt and Miguel!) It was nice to see some familiar faces before setting off again!

How many times have you seen this picture? 

Day two was a long one. We drove from Reno, NV down to Salt Lake City, Utah. None of us had been to Salt Lake before, but it took us quite awhile to get there. We stopped just on the other side of the Utah border to stretch our legs and check out the salt flats. The people at the rest stop probably thought we were crazy as were running and jumping all over the crunchy ground.

Linnea taking the fancy photos :)

 By the time we actually arrived at our hotel, it was dark and we were super hungry. We showered and changed and headed out to a little restaurant called The Copper Onion. The restaurant was cozy but still chic and we enjoyed some pasta and a few appetizers. When we got back to our hotel, Emily and I crashed before we had even turned the lights out!

Day three was wonderful, and quite possibly my favorite day of the whole trip. We decided to drive to Uinta National Forest because from a little research we heard that there were some awesome hot springs to check out. We drove in about 10 miles and parked right at the trail head. The walk was just over two miles with a few slight inclines and it was absolutely beautiful. The weather was great and the trail followed the water all the way to the hot springs. The water temp was perfect and we completed about four and a half miles by the end.

View from one of the foot bridges

The beautiful hot springs!

We were so thirsty by the end that we stuck our water bottle straws in our ice bags from the cooler!

Post hike "ussie" 

 Before leaving Utah Linnea really wanted to stop and visit Arches National Park. We were racing against the sun, but we made it just before the sun disappeared so we were able to check out the amazing red rock formations. We also did some low key bouldering which was quite fun.

My dad let us take his binoculars and for some reason this totally reminded me of the move Wall-E :)

By the end of day three, we made it to Parachute, Colorado. Originally we had planned to go a little further, but the weather was insane. There was a torrential down pour, our wiper blades were leaving massive streaks on the windshield and we had a few mini hydroplane scares. As we drove into Parachute, the town's welcome sign read. "Parachute, A Safe Place to Land." Indeed it was! 

More on the rest of the trip later!

Just Because I Wanted To

I know I've been gone for what feels like half a century. I'm going to skip the apologies and just say that I had a wonderful summer full of work, play, travel, family and friends. Maybe I'll recap my recent road trip, but no promises!

Anyway the reason I felt like writing today has to do with exercise. I am going to be 100% honest and say that it has been far too long since I did anything aside from cardio. For a good chunk of the summer, my childhood friend Ali and I tried to meet up in the evenings and power walk a couple of miles. It was great to have some walk and talk time, but it wasn't too rigorous (as in, better for our sanity than our quads, but it was still very valuable.) While I was on my road trip, we stopped at a few beautiful places to stretch our legs and do a little exploring. A couple miles a day, but again nothing major. As the summer progressed I started feeling pretty crappy about my body. My self esteem tanked and I felt myself heading down a bumpy road. I also started taking a new medication that messed with my system and I experienced some of the (expected) weight gain that came as a side effect. My clothes started feeling a little tighter and I really noticed how different my body felt because I just wasn't moving enough.

Long story short (I'm a rambler!) today was the first day in a very long time that I really felt like moving and working up a good sweat. It is crazy how much a 30 minute workout can turn your whole day around. I wound up working late last night and had to be up early again today and by the time I got home I was feeling so lethargic that I could barely keep myself awake! I decided to work out, not because I felt guilty or obligated, but because my body was really craving it (listening to my body, what a concept! ;) )

Side note: Earlier today my good friend Annie asked if I wanted to walk to the grocery store with her. It's only a mile away, but about a third of that mile is a massive hill. Like cardiac-arrest-inducing massive. Yeah. I was kind of nervous because I knew we'd be carrying our groceries back with us, so about an hour before we left I decided to do Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred. Back in high school when I lost about 30 pounds, Jillian was my go to girl. I saw results within days of starting the program, but most importantly I felt incredible. I felt energetic, strong and healthy. I want to feel that way again!

So I did the workout in my room. It was tough, but I was feeling very positive so I just pushed through. Was it the best workout ever? Nope. Did I feel like I was giving it my all the entire time? Yup! And to be fair, I was expecting it to be a lot worse. Moral of the story: My endurance needs some work, but I have had many a workout where I've felt far weaker than I did today. Victory? I think so! #babysteps

(That rambling thing... gotta work on it!) Anyway, lately I've been trying to pay more attention to my body and what it really needs. I've been reading, It Starts With Food, which is the book that the Whole 30 is based on, and it's helped me to take a step back and think about how I fuel my body and how much of an impact food has on our daily lives. I'm slowly phasing into the 30 day "real food" challenge, but as for now I'm really just working on listening to my body and fueling it with premium goods.

Final thoughts: My body is aching in that oh so wonderful I-really-pushed-myself way and I am going to bed truly content with how today worked out. Be back soon!

Summer Smoothies and CPR

Smoothie Makin'
It's no lie, I live for smoothies. If everything tasted good in smoothie form, I would blend every meal. I rarely use ice because I don't want my drinks to be too watery (I'm not a huge fan of soy/almond/milk in my smoothies), so instead I use frozen fruit and cold water almost exclusively. I also like adding a decent amount of kale or spinach, or both, because it's virtually tasteless and it's a good way to sneak in some greens. I should probably get better at measuring, but I tend to just eyeball things. Tonights smoothie consisted of:

• A large handful of fresh kale
• Trader Joe's (TJ's) frozen pineapple chunks
• TJ's frozen blueberries
• TJ's frozen raspberries
• Half of strawberry greek yogurt cup
• 1 tsp Chia seeds
• Cold water, enough to get everything moving

  

  The ingredients 

  

  Finished product: Made for a great dinner after a late lunch! 

It was delicious! Side note: I used a Vitamix for the first time tonight and I think I'm in LOVE! It was not too loud, it blended so beautifully and it hardly took any time! I used a friend's, but now that I've been exposed I think I'm going to have to save up and get one. 

CPR/ First Aid Re-Certification

This summer I'm working with an incredible non-profit in my home community to promote college readiness, specifically for low income and first generation students. Part of the program I'm participating in involves spending a week on a college campus with our high school students, exposing them to various resources, taking them on college tours and encouraging them to explore the opportunities available to them. I have been working alongside seven other college student advisors, as well as two staff members from the organization. 

The instructors gave us each a mask and gloves to keep in our purses

Long story short, because we will be the primary adults on call throughout the week, we all needed to make sure our CPR certification was up to date. Mine expired about two weeks ago, so the timing worked out pretty perfectly. Added bonus: Because there were so many of us, they brought the training staff to our office and we got to role play some of the crazy scenarios with our co-workers. Luckily, these scenes were significantly less traumatic than when I had to practice in real life. When I was 16, one of the toddlers I babysat for choked on a piece of cantaloupe her mom had given her for lunch. Between her mom and I, we were able to dislodge it with back blows, but it was the most traumatic thing that has happened to me thus far. I had nightmares for weeks, and I thought I was the worst person on the planet for not being able to rescue her on my own. Lots of therapy helped that, but even though I've worked with kids 4-5 days a week ever since, I still get anxious when kids take big bites or start coughing while they eat. 

Anyway, back to the point: I got re-certified and we managed to have a good time doing so :)

Coming up next on the blog: The MisFit Shine and the beauty of infused water! 

A Week In Nashville

From June 14th to the 22nd, I was in Nashville Tennessee attending the International Convention for the community service organization I'm a part of. This convention was a pretty big deal for me, as it was the last official event of the 2013-2014 service year in which I served on the Board for the California-Nevada-Hawaii district. It was an incredible year filled with all kinds of new responsibilities, events and opportunities. My job as a Lieutenant Governor was to oversee the colleges in the South Bay, to assist their club boards, to plan events and host meetings, and to represent my schools in District matters. It was very demanding and time consuming, but it was probably the most memorable year of my life thus far.

Anyway, back to Nashville! I left on Saturday morning around 9:30, took a bus to SFO and then a flight to LAX. Conveniently, my friend Kayla (who lives in Southern California) had booked the same flight to Nashville, so we were excited to kill time together at the airport. Unfortunately, what was supposed to be a two hour layover turned into a six and a half hour layover, so it was a good thing we had each other to help the time pass. Southwest Airlines apologized for the delay by giving us a $100 flight voucher which did make things a little better. We finally arrived in Nashville around 2am and we were super hungry! We pooled our stashes and had a bunch of snack foods on the plane, but aside from that we hadn't had a real meal in twelve hours. Unfortunately, the only place open that was in walking distance of the hotel was a Jack in the Box, but it was better than nothing. 

Pooling our resources 

We slept in the next day and spent a good chunk of the afternoon lazying around our hotel waiting for more friends to arrive and watching soccer. We had lunch at an amazing chicken place called Hattie B's. It was very stereotypical southern comfort food and they had the sweetest sweet tea I've ever tasted. I had to dilute mine to make it drinkable, but it was still good. That evening we took a shuttle from our hotel into the downtown area, referred to as The District. It was very touristy with a lot of honky tonks, restaurants and souvenir shops. 

Hattie B's (that mac and cheese rocked!)

Pulled pork 

The first three days of the event were dedicated to Large Scale Service Project (LSSP). As a member of the planning committee, I spent most of Monday with the committee preparing for registration, finalizing last minute details for various projects and making sure we were ready for the 300+ members who would be arriving shortly. As a team leader, I got to meet and spend time with nine members from all over the world. We worked at two different locations, first at a center for infants and toddlers and second for a non-profit called Project C.U.R.E. It was amazing to see how much we were able to accomplish in just a few short days. By the end of it, our organization had completed more than 4,000 service hours at 25 different projects around the city. Amazing!

The second half of the event was dedicated to more political things. We all gathered to listen to the candidates seeking international office and I got to help a few friends prepare for caucus. This portion of the event last year was incredibly boring, but it was much more enjoyable this year! We also had an awards night in which individuals, clubs and districts from around the world were recognized for their accomplishments. Our district did very well and I even received an award for my work this year, it was very exciting :)

My Distinguished Award :D

All in all, it was an awesome trip. We explored the Vanderbilt campus and learned some new tricks regarding proper etiquette. Spending time with everyone and seeing all the work that had gone into the past year reminded me how wonderful it is to be a part of an organization that spans the globe. And next year, we're headed to Indianapolis!

Etiquette Lunch with Mama Nonnie

Andrew checking out Vanderbilt at night