Adjusted Reality

Tag: travel

Oregon Coast – 50 is a Temperature in Summer!

On August 7, 2014

When we last left off, we had taken the max to the bus station just outside Portland proper.

We had about an hour or two of stress here. First of all, the bus number was not listed on the signs for the ones that stopped there. We called the bus company, and got transferred to another bus company, and then was told it was cash only. Zliten was excited because he had saved our cash… but we were about 4 dollars short.

I was trying to figure out what sort of gymnastics/comedy show I was going to have to put on to raise 4 dollars in the next 20 minutes, but instead, he ran the half mile to the nearest ATM and got us squared away. I let him do that one since… uh… running not in a sports bra would have been painful. I’ll let him be the hero here. Glad we are runners!

Then, right before the bus came, I realized I quite needed a bathroom. I looked around and asked the coffee stand I accidentally walked into looking for one – nothing in the area. I figured I would have to wait for the bus. I mean, a 2 hour bus had to have a bathroom, right?

Nope.

I spent the first hour and a half deep breathing and trying to go to my happy place while we wound through rickety and steep and windy roads on the little cow bus. I kept envisioning having to ask the driver to pull over and finding a little spot in the woods to claim as my own, but then before it got to that point she pulled us into a forest station area and said “go potty if you need”.

Let me tell you, I bounded off that bus so fast you would think there was a finish line and medals.

Once that was taken care of, I really really enjoyed the scenery in between reading my book. It was so green and foresty and gorgeous. Our bus went up and up and down and down and then… we were there! Our friends were waiting for us with a truck and we loaded our bags in and headed off to explore the Tillamook cheese factory.

It was super busy, but we made sure to get some ice cream (seriously, some of the best ice cream I’ve ever had and so many flavors, I had tiny scoops of cookies and cream, pb chocolate, and pecan praline) and look at the giant conveyor belts and pots of cheese in progress of making it’s way to us consumer people.

The best part was the tasting area. Everything was awesome, but the chili garlic was especially amazing. We brought some back with us and it was gone in 3 days (with four people sharing).

Then, we hit the grocery store. I don’t do well without a list, and I hadn’t prepared for that (for some reason, I figured we’d go out most of the time), so we ended up with way, way too much food combined with what was already at the house. At no point during this stretch of the vacation was I hungry, because it was always the goal to see how little food we could waste.

Finally, we got to the house. The view did not disappoint. At all. This would be my dream view from my living room (though – probably somewhere a ~~wee bit~~ lot warmer).

My husband saw ocean and wanted to get in it (not that I was far behind with that sentiment). So, we did that. He got in first without the wetsuit (to which I put one toe in and said “fuck that shit”), and then we wetsuitted up (and I, with my two swim caps, ear plugs, and lava booties) and took our safe swimmers for a 20 minute “swim” in 55 degree water. I say “swim” because it took probably 10-15 of those minutes to get my face in the water. We swam a few lengths of freestyle, but mostly just spent the time splishing in the waves.

Takeaway: 55 degrees is a temperature I could probably swim in, with AMPLE warmup, and some time to acclimate. And probably a neoprene cap. Good to know.

The afternoon was for drinking wine, eating cheese, and relaxing.

We tried to fly kites, we (ok, I) took pictures of all the angles of the coast and got really happy when it got clear enough to see the sea monster.

For dinner, we grilled shrimp and fish and made rice and salad, and watched the sunset. Our friends, who had been there since Thursday with family, said it was the first clear day, I’m glad it was there for us. It was spectacular to watch… and so weird that it was light until after 10pm. I know, geography and logic and all that, it’s just hard to wrap my brain around when I thought it was really cool that Austin stayed light until after 9 some days in June.

We went to bed right after a few quick games of Quirkle (I didn’t win ONCE) and some brownies a la mode, because we had a big day ahead, and an early morning.

Tuesday was chilly (50 degrees is a temperature in summer – WHO KNEW?), but as instructed, I dressed in sandals and shorts (and a lot of layers on my top half) because we were getting in a little tiny boat and catching crabs!

We got to the docks, got our licenses, bought some gloves so we wouldn’t tear up our hands, got our crab rings (nets with some really stanky fish heads tied in the middle, and by 7am we were cruising out into the channel. They had the method down. Set the pots, drink a beer, and then check em. I was freeeezing so I let the boys do the first round, but on the second and the third rounds I tossed one and pulled one up.

We ended up with 16!!! keeper crabs. Hundreds made their way into our nets, but we were instructed to put back anything under a certain size, and females (so they could produce more delicious crab babies), and that still left a sizeable feast for us.

After our two hours, we turned in our crab pots and they boiled them for us. We drank another beer and talked to a couple, incidentally, from Round Rock (20 mins away from where we live). They were on their honeymoon, and just came to eat crab (not catch it).

Soon, the crabbies were ready, and I was taught a (probably really gross) trick – if you crack the shell, there is this yellow liquid that tastes like butter. I told everyone not to tell me exactly what it was (crab pee? crab brain goo?) under penalty of bodily injury because I’m really squeamish about weird animal parts, and used it as dip. Seriously, no one tell me. That was delicious.

After that, we stopped to get some more beer and wine, and then our friends took a nap and Zliten and I hung out on the patio and ate lunch (crab was breakfast). I got sleepy and took a nap, and was woken up with a… very beery Zliten telling me it was time to get in the ocean. Fine. I wetsuitted up, put on my booties and safe swimmer, and we played in the waves for another 20 minutes. Refreshing!

When I warmed up and dried off, our friends were cleaning crabs, so I went to help. I guess Zliten had gotten a little squeamish with the overwhelming crab smell, so he was outside. We got those suckers into bowls in no time and we had about a bazillion pounds of crab. It was insane.

We started the grill and had a feast. I cooked up everyone crab taco appetizers (crab, onions, peppers, pico, cheese, pineapple), the boys made us some sausage/beef hamburgers, and I gave crab cakes a go… however I forgot to put any sort of pam/oil/butter in the foil, and they stuck to it. Bleh. Normally I’d be super upset wasting crab, but we had so much left… I just consoled myself with crab dipped in butter mixed with hot sauce. So, so good.

Everyone went to sleep early, and I wasn’t tired yet, so I watched the last bits of the sunset and read my book for a while. Soon, my lids were droopy too, so I crawled into bed.

We woke up fairly early on our own and packed up our stuff. I took those damn terrible crab cakes and chopped them up with some potatoes and butter and made some AWESOME crab hash. There was so much food left, even though there was so much food we had eaten, it was sad. Since we were moving onto another condo-with-a-kitchen scenario, I took with as much as I could. My backpack looked like a vegetable crisper and our luggage towed things such as red wine and a full family size box of Kix.

We said goodbye to the coast around 11am, and started the drive back to Portland. We drove the route we were planning on biking… and let me tell you… I’m actually really happy we didn’t. There were a lot of very narrow two lane roads and steep terrain. My bike balls are really small and doing that ride would have taken some major cojones.

It was incredibly gorgeous, if rainy and grey. Texas default is rolling farmland, which is pretty, but nothing like the Oregon uber green rainforest which is everywhere besides civilization. This is part of what makes me crush a little on the Pacific Northwest – the uber greenery without the swamp-like conditions.

We stopped at Camp 18 to use the bathroom – the plan was to eat brunch there, but we were all way too full from the “eat all the fridge” fest. It was old logging camp, and the interior had these huge trees used as celing beams. However, I was more excited about the bathroom signs.

We took pictures with Smokey and Sasquatch and moseyed on to the Portland Airport. We were going to check out some waterfalls, but we were just on the edge of having enough time, so we decided to have a nice sit down lunch in the terminal instead at Stanford’s.

Normally when we all sit down to eat together, we order a bottle of wine and an appetizer and all sorts of goodness – none of that today. I got myself a minestrone soup and salad. It’s odd to say, because I ordered it simply because I wanted *something with vegetables*, but it was one of the best salads I’ve ever had with a super garlic-y dressing and delicious sourdough croutons, and pretty damn stellar minestrone to boot.

Our friends got through security just as their flight started to board back to Austin. We settled into the gate next to theirs for the next hour and read our book. Soon, we boarded as well, and we were on our way to the third and final leg of our adventure!

Portland – Beauty is in the Eye of the Beerholder

By Quix

On July 30, 2014

In Uncategorized

Part 1: Portland

Vacation officially kicked Friday night after work. We made a pasta dinner, and figured it couldn’t hurt to split a bottle of wine to go with it, calm us down (it had been a heck of a day at work), and send us into sleepy time since we had to be up very early.

Well, one bottle became two, and early became late, and I had to drag myself to bed around midnight because I was JUST NOT TIRED, which meant I woke up a little hungover and very tired with 3 hours sleep when my alarm went off at 4am (which was actually late, since our flight left at 6).

Our OMG made the flight by literally one minute faces…

Long story short, though everything tried to conspire to keep us off that flight (including a bag coming apart in security, and the scanner breaking down and needing a reset as I was up in line), we got to the gate with one minute to spare. The rest of the flight was uneventful, and just a few (7) short hours later we emerged in Portlandia. That’s what all the locals call it, right? I heard it on a TV show.

Our norm is to take a cab to the hotel, but decided to give public transportation a go, and I’m really glad we did. It was 5 bucks for the whole day and took just a LITTLE longer than I expect a cab would take, but it was great to see the city. We arrived at our destination, and walked two blocks to our hotel, Hotel DeLuxe.

It was just as swanky as advertised. It had a old-movie-star feel and theme to the place, and a playlist with Frank Sinatra crooning greeting us upon entering the room put it over the top in levels of coolness. A brief stop for lunch at Cheryl’s on 12th had to happen. Fish tacos! Prime rib sammich! Free Beignets! Super nice wait staff as well.

Between the cool lunch spot, the walk in the afternoon sun but temperate (read: not feels like strangling death) climate, and the fun touches of the city made me fall a little in love with it already, like I did Seattle (although I know we can’t be together all the time, your winters would depress me).

After a bit of time recharging in the room, we headed off to play on some trails! I had been super excited about this part, and while I was a little worse for wear on 3 hours sleep and fueled by wine and spicy tacos, I was not willing to skip this part of the plan. We took the Max to the zoo, and after getting turned around a bit, we found Wildwood Trail and boy, she was a stunner.

It was hot by Portland standards, 80-something, I believe, but the lack of humidity and the tree cover through most of the run made it not a thing. We went up, and down, and up, and around, and past some places where one wrong step would send us down a steep hill to our doom, and wound around and back.

We stopped at the official Rose Gardens and found it was 9 bucks – so we wound our way back around to the Test Gardens (which were free). I will need to spend the money on the real deal someday, because the test area was super duper gorgeous! Rows upon rows of gorgeous variations. My phone battery took a huge hit there snapping photos.

After the run for the roses, we decided to head back to where we left the Max instead of hoofing it toward the hotel, so we could catch more trail instead of streets. By this point, I had convinced myself I was going to move to Oregon and become an ultra trail runner. Then – reality set in and we had to walk part of the way back because of all the climbing and we’re at the end of offseason which means sloth season. Someday, I want to go run more of that trail, it goes for 30 miles, and I want to see all of it. Our guess was about 5.5-6 miles total in about an hour and ten (~800 or so feet of climb), with a few miles of walking as well.

Feeling energized, we did a quick shower and change, and prepared to grab some drinks and dinner at Trader Vic’s. After a nice long walk North to continue to stretch out our legs, we ended up being able to sneak into a nice, comfy booth at the bar right away. We started with a Mai Tai sampler and a crispy shrimp appetizer, both of which were amazing – Guava was my favorite Mai Tai, and the shrimp had this spicy/sweet sauce that was amazing. Zliten cleared the restaurant for use after getting the info that they did not fry in peanut oil.

The server came by and said the kitchen was slammed, and brought us another appetizer – lavash bread and homemade peanut butter (and then profusely apologized to Zliten and brought him some fruit, he was not offended and pretty full anyway). The pb was heaven, but I tried to exercise some restraint because I had dinner coming.

I did NOT exercise restraint in ordering a second drink though – Navy Grogg. I was kinda full up on sweet, and the mix of ginger and spice cut through the fog of sugar overload. Zliten’s second drink, the Trader Vic’s official Mai Tai, was like a mix of grain alcohol and heroin. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him leave a drink before, but after we both worked on it for 10 minutes, we decided to give up about 2/3rds through it.

Dinner was largely unremarkable. My lunar chicken was kinda undercooked and the coleslaw was a weird addition to chicken and pasta (though that part was divine). Zliten enjoyed his tiki burger alright. I enjoyed the tiki atmosphere and experience, but I’d probably do happy hour and pupus here next time, not dinner.

While I could tell that Zliten really wanted to call it a night, we grabbed one more drink at the Driftwood Lounge (at the hotel). It was a sexy little intimate spot – we got the last table. The bartenders had a snappy and debonaire attitude. It’s the kind of place you pour over your date and look into their eyes and it should have smoke wafting into the air, and you would probably get ostracized for whipping out your iPhone here. I liked it a lot. We had two champagne cocktails (the Elizabeth Taylor and the Springtime in Paris), and an order of fried cauliflower. It came with lemon zest, big bulbs of garlic, and olives. To. Die. For. Lovely spot to end the night, but our tireds caught up with us and we slept soundly.

Sunday, we slept until we woke up. Nine am might not sound like a feat, but considering it was 11am back in Texas, I was pretty proud. We leisurely got up and showered and read and relaxed, and had plans to meet a friend for lunch – let’s call him Celedon, as that was his moniker on EverQuest, where we met him on some snowy hills while he was killing giants. Today, we met him at a library, and we went in search of tasty Indian food.

This was challenging, as so many places were closed until the evening, or for the day. Even Yelp failed us, which was a sad surprise. I love my Yelp. I happened to spy a tasty looking burger place named Joe’s Burgers on our trek, and we chatted over some fine Oregonian beef burgers that tasted fairly similar to In N Out. The fries were good, but unremarkable.

Next, was the quest for beer. Portland + craft brews is like peas + carrots. We started with Virginia Cafe, which was one of Cel’s post work haunts. I had a delicious cider which was not too sweet or strong, a great first day drink, afraid I don’t remember the name. We sat outside on the patio continuing to talk (I believe we had turned to video games at this point) and enjoy Portland’s affinity for NOT BEING BALLS HOT. I’m pretty sure Cel got tired of us saying “let’s sit OUTSIDE” everywhere we went, but the July weather was just so novel.

The afternoon was a haze of beer. Zliten and I split a sampler – and by sampler I mean a taster of all 10 beers PINTS makes. The Rose Cream ale was the standout for me, but I had a sour beer and found I liked those as well. Next, was Bailey’s Tap Room (a spot multiple Austin peeps had said to try), and they had a ginger beer that rocked my world. I took care to write it down somewhere, and now I can’t locate the paper (Edit, took a picture – it was Caldera). That’s about how I felt when we left, that is, after meeting some new friends (and their adorable doggie) who grilled us on Texas slang via an internet quiz and talked about Seattle vs Portland vs Southern California vs Texas.

Beer warriors were weary and in need of food, so we hit up India House for nourishment. Chicken tikka masala, rice, and naan hit the spot, though Portland medium spicy is definitely not Texas medium spicy (I should have said hot, but it was still wonderful). We parted ways with Cel at that point, and we walked around for a bit.

I was intrigued by the Sand Bar, so we went in for a drink. I got some wine, and we chatted with the bartender that was from New Orleans, but didn’t love the spot, so we moved on. Zliten had REALLY wanted to hit up Deschutes Public House earlier, but it was super busy. Not so an hour before closing. We sat at the bar, and enjoyed a yummy spiced table beer.

We met a younger guy who had quit his job in April to travel the US (along with his girlfriend and some friends) – they were currently couch surfing a little north of Portland. They started in Florida, traveled up the East coast, through Chicago and the midwest, and were now making their way down the west coast. Ah, to be young and have that kind of freedom. Why didn’t I do stupid stuff like that in my early 20s? He suggested some great lakes (not THE great lakes, of course) to check out next time. When asked, he said he liked Chicago the best of everywhere they’d been thus far. Being from there, I think he had pretty good taste!

We made one more stop at the Driftwood. I required more of that delicious cauliflower, we got some spicy broccolini as well, which came with shaved parmesan and a great sauce. I mean, come on, can you beat veggies as bar food? We made it to last call (which was early on a Sunday), and took our last drink up to the room and resisted the urge to break into the honor bar. Good us.

Monday morning came quickly, and I had no love for breakfast food that morning. The last thing I wanted was some sweet pancakes, so we set out looking for an alternative that was open. After a few blocks, I looked up, and it’s as if angels sang a choir – a hole in the wall taco shop called Maya’s Taqueria was open. They even were serving the full menu! I got four amazing mini asada chicken tacos, after noshing on some amazing spicy salsa and chips. Perfect for cutting through the next day beer fog.

In a jiffy, we packed up, checked out, walked the two blocks to the Max, and caught a train right away. It was sad to say goodbye to Portland, we had fun stomping all over town for a few days, but it was time to move onto the next adventure.

Coasting

By Quix

On July 27, 2014

In Uncategorized

Longer post with assloads of pictures to come, but… we are happy and fat and have returned back from vacation. Here is the abridged version…

We spent a weekend in Portland, it was a thing of beauty. Running and roses were first on the agenda.

Beauty is also in the beerholder (just not the after affects the next day).

Then, we moved onto the Oregon Coast for a few days. We found out that 50-something is actually a temperature in July, but swimming is possible with preparation in 55 degree water.

Then, we hightailed it to Northern California, for some family time. Water temperatures in the low 60s felt downright pleasant after Oregon! We enjoyed our morning runs on the beach each day, though we were scared of being pooped on.

Monterey Bay Aquarium was definitely a highlight of the trip. So many camera batteries died that day taking hundreds of pictures.

And now I’m enjoying one more lazy day before jumping back into real life – work, eating things that do not come from a snack bag or come in a bun, and training again. More on that later, of course, as well.

I’m on a boat! (Cozumel/Roatan/Belize Cruise)

By Quix

On March 28, 2014

In Uncategorized

If someone asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday, and said money was no object, scuba diving in Cozumel would have been pretty near the top of my list. And, spoilers, that’s exactly how I spent my day. My life is rad. But let’s go back to the beginning, because it’s a very good place to start.

This is a long one, campers. Get a bevvie, a sammich, and a comfy chair as I’m doing this all in one shot.

Saturday: Embarkation

I went and had a little jog that morning, and while a PR or at least a great race would have been a great way to start vacation, any morning I get to run 13 miles and am still upright after is a great one. The tummy issues started to subside as I got some food in me, and though we had a small wait to get on board, it was handled really really well (unlike ONE YEAR when we had to wait in line for like 9 hours outside and I got sick), and we snagged some lunch (potatoes, aloo, chickpea soup, salad, bread, scallops, stew, veggies – tastes of everything that looked yummy), and then went back to the room and popped the champagne cans we had saved for after the race. I felt much, much better by then.

The boat drill had us standing for quite a while, and I was really cranky because my legs were sore from racing. Once I got back to the room and finished my champagne can #2 though, I wasn’t feeling much pain anymore.

We changed for dinner (yay for our bags getting to us quickly) and as we sat down and ordered a glass of wine, we got notification that we had to book it to beat the fog, and we were off!

My plan was this – try not to eat like a complete jerk the rest of the time, but eat whatever I wanted at dinners. This particular day I enjoyed a roll with butter, spring rolls with peanut sauce, tortellini soup, crawfish etouffe w rice and veggies, split flourless chocolate cake with my mom, and had some bites of honeydew sorbet. So, yeah – I those carb stores were all back to where they should have been. Yep.

We saw the welcome show, which was a taste of all sorts of acts and meeting all the major staff. After that, we played cards with the ‘rents. Dad and I lost, which did not make us happy, but it was what it was.

Then, we left my parents and went up to the nightclub (the only bar that was still open) and drank a few crown on the rocks. This was my plan for drinking – mixed drinks I can pound until I can’t see straight, and I was hoping not to come home with another injury. The straight stuff, I sip like a normal human being, and I look classy. Bonus.

We weren’t feeling the dancing – running a hard half marathon does that to you, I guess, but we really enjoyed people watching and talking, and later retired to bed to watch TV with a to go drink, and drifted to sleep with the rock of the boat.

Sunday: Sea Day

After a few early wakeups, I really enjoyed sleeping until I couldn’t sleep no more in the dark of the interior cabin. Good times. Once I got up, I dithered around a bit, reading, tv, etc, and then finally got myself presentable to leave the cabin and we went to lunch.

Food there was a salad with spectacular tomato basil vinegrette, pea soup, a bite of fettucini, a few bites of some really great (usually cruise mexican food is WAH WAH) chicken enchiladas, and some fajita innards with a few tortilla chips, and more veggies. Yum.

After lunch we headed to the champagne art auction, because a) champagne and b) we were actually interested in buying some art. However, the art we wanted didn’t come up, and nothing else struck our fancy. I was kinda getting grumpy about spending 2 hours at it, but it was kind of fun (the auctioneer made it not so super serious).

We spent the afternoon playing cards with the ‘rents. I lost. Again. Meh. I was also cranky because I had yet to get any fun in the sun pool time, butt it was ~70 and super windy, so I decided to be patient and not tough it out for the sake of doing it (yes, poor me, pity me please…).

It was a fancy dressup night, so I decided to split the difference with fancy dress and some make up, but I let me hair do the au natural stuff and ended up with a fairly nice picture of us, so I’ll maintain I made the right call.

Dinner was pretty stellar, the requisite bread and butter, chilled corn soup, asparagus and salmon soup, salad w blue cheese, garlic shrimp dinner with rice and veggies, and the BEST desert – Oreo pb pie with a little bit of grapefruit sorbet on the side (not great together, but so so so good individually).

Please keep in mind this picture was AFTER the dinner when looking at the full body shot.

We did a lot of walking around, getting more pictures, drinking a glass of champagne, checking out the art gallery, and then we showed up to a PACKED revue show to which we got crappy seats not together, but it worked. We couldn’t locate my parents after, so we wandered more and ended up at the majority rules game show. Was not in the majority, lost badly but was a lot of fun. We decided to try to show up to more gameshows.

We hit the late buffet just to grab some snacks to bring with while diving the next day – but ended up snacking on some greek salad, some brie and blue cheese, green beans, and a potato croquet. Oops. We had a discussion over the snack of the idea for a new game feature, which could be promising! Can I write all this off as a business expense now?

Ended up back at the room really early and zonked out on my last day of being 34.

Monday: Cozumel (Birthday)

It’s fuzzy, but for some reason I look like the girl from She’s All That.

Happy birthday to me! I woke up semi-on time, and in enough time to fuel up for the day with corned beef hash (this is my cruise breakfast treat – I love it but it’s just so awful, I know), two hashbrown bits, english muffin w/ cream cheese, bacon, and fruit. It sounds like a lot, but diving REALLY takes a lot out of you.

We waited and then finally got the signal to go and our party was missing one – it happened to be the guy we were talking to that mentioned he was waiting for his wife on the ship because she had his passport. We relayed the message and she had to run back there and we had a little wait. It harkened to the days before cell phones. What did we do without?

We finally got all our peeps, then got out on the water and rode for about 45 mins to the first spot. I was happy as could be, I could have not asked for a better day, except for ONE THING.

So, my birthday wish was to see a turtle. Now, on the first dive, I saw MANY COOL THINGS. I saw a manta ray with a ramora fish attached. I got to hang out with a 5-6 foot nurse shark for a bit, real close. So many pretty fishies. But, after the first dive, when Zliten was like “OMG did you see the turtle?” I was like… “Whaaaaaa?” I totally missed him. He was super far away. So, I guess I got to SWIM with a turtle, close enough.

I could talk for a whole post about diving, but I’ll give the short version. The crew was pretty cool and did a lot of the heavy lifting for us. We got to go in the group that was first off and last back on, so lots of water time. We drift dove in the Cozumel currents, which meant we started at point A and the boat picked us up at point B. I fumbled a bit with my new camera, but got some great shots. This was not my favorite diving experience (it will take a lot to top Bonaire) but it was solid. Never a bad day when you get to spend time like this.

The boat dropped us off, we did a quick change, and went to one of those super touristy bars on the pier. It was my birthday, I wanted a big sugary fruity drink. I had some restraint though, I only had one. We met a couple from Oregon and talked a bit. We saw them throughout the cruise, but they always looked either super drunk or super hung over and cranky, so we didn’t really become cruise friends. On the way back to the ship, I picked up some rum cakes for souveniers and we waved bye bye to Cozumel.

A quick change, and then we toasted my birthday before dinner with champagne with the family. I got some earrings and socks. I’m a simple girl. I was happy.

Birthday dinner was ultimately spectacular. I’ll say it was my favorite, but I may contradict this later in the writeup. So much good food. On the menu: crab dip w/bread, Caesar salad, filet mignon and gorgeous shrimp, chocolate birthday cake, and butter pecan ice cream.

We played yet another round of cards and yet again I lost. No birthday luck there. We had originally planned on being super good that night because I wanted to spend EVERY MOMENT POSSIBLE in Roatan, but we got there later than I thought, so we went back to the nightclub bar to hang out and people watch for a bit, but then realized that the room bottle service was a MUCH better deal and we weren’t feeling social, so we got that (and maybe some fries for electrolyte purposes) delivered to the room.

Tuesday: Roatan

I got up super duper excited for the day and fueled up with a similar healthy breakfast except I had a strawberry pancake instead of hashed browns.

Once it was FINALLY TIME we got off the ship, we took a gondola ride seeing some gorgeous views (fun fact: I booked the gondola ride because I got the impression it was the only way to get to the private beach. My parents walked and made it there before us.) and then it was SNORKEL TIME! I love diving, but it is such a hassle to deal with equipment and snorkeling you can just get in the water with a few things and GO. It’s like comparing triathon to running.

Again, I could do a whole post about this day, but here’s the highlights. At first, we got in and explored the swimming area and it was kinda snoozey. Then, we cut across to the slightly deeper area and RIGHT THERE was this HUGE reef. It took everything I could to not go find a phone, tell everyone I wasn’t coming home, and move to Roatan.

We spent two hours out there exploring and finally I got dragged out of the water by Zliten for a rest. Boo. We found my mom lounging on the chair reading under the clamshell and Zliten got us a plate of smoked jerk chicken, beans and rice, pico, and fried plantains to nibble on for lunch. While that digested I went for a float w Joel and then we decided to go back out to the reef.

The second time we got a LOT better pictures and got a lot more bold. We both free dove probably about 20 feet down to look at stuff, we saw lobsters and crabs and creeped on a school of fish playing paparazzi, and I saw my octopus buddy again!

I also saw a HUGE spotted ray whiz right by me, and I tried to chase it down… and ended up WAYYY out in the boat lane and the kayaker yelled at me to come back. Oops.

Zliten was done with the water, so he did the reading thing, and I went to go float with my mom for a while. I noticed my heels were chafed from my fins… or so I though. Nope, HOLY BACK OF THE LEGS SUNBURN. It was bad. It’s STILL peeling, and I spend a lot of time in the sun so it takes a lot to burn me.

We had to say goodbye to our pretty beach, and we ended up meeting a couple from San Diego on the gondola ride back and shot the shit with them. I looked into every little shop for a tee to bring back and finally found my birthday turtle on a shirt. I was satiated.

We had a little wine, and then went to dinner. It was italian night. I love italian night! I had a little spaghetti and meat ball appetier (I meant to get it to taste it but ate the whole damn thing because it was GREAT), minestrone soup, salad with cheese and bacon, tilapia, and limoncello sorbet with a bit of tiramasu.

After dinner, I was having food hallucinations. I was so tired from so much sun and fun and a huge meal. We went to the show (it was called Calliente – some really cool costumes!) – Zliten couldn’t keep his eyes open waiting for it to start, I made it through – but begged off right after and retired to the room to watch TV and read and sleep super early.

Wednesday: Belize

Yep, someone still had the red filter on from the day before…

We were booked for an early ruins tour, so I slept like a sleep monster until 5 minutes before I had to go, thus skipping breakfast. We had some emergency snacks packed, so I shared a bar with Zliten on the bus and life was fine. The bus ride was about an hour to get to the ruins site, and the tour guides entertained us with stories about Belize.

There were so many schools and churches, and while a lot of the houses were rickety, we found out at 18, they get to apply for land granted by the government and get 5 years to build on it. So they all pretty much know how to build a house. So useful! Also, there were some sweet houses for the rich people – mostly government officials. The day was gorgeous, about 80 and humid, but the sky was SO BLUE and the trees were so GREEN. I just couldn’t get over it.

We got to the ruins of Alten-ha and got more stories about what they were used for – I’m going to gloss over this part because I don’t remember a lot of it and this is already epic-length (and that’s what google is for), but we got to climb a bunch of them and look out… so pretty.

It was a nice reinforcement of fitness because the climbs were NO PROBLEM for us but hard for a lot of the group. I guess I’m not THAT bad at hills? 🙂

Our bus broke down, so we had a bit of a wait after the tour so we grabbed a beer (BELIKIN! Yay!) and soon we were on our way. Zliten napped on the way back, I took pictures, and then we were all of a sudden back at the docks.

We hit up the Wet Lizard – a totally tourist bar, but we had met the owner last time so we were hoping to see her and say hi. We did – she probably didn’t remember us (it had been 3 years) but talked to her for a bit. Being that it was late afternoon and all we had was half a bar and one beer, we indulged in some belizian meat pies, fish and chicken tacos, and a bucket or two of Belikins (we mixed a few lighthouse lagers in there too), watching the ocean and the construction workers next door. It was a nice, relaxing afternoon.

We picked up a souvenir tee shirt for Zliten, then picked up a tender boat back to the ship, and relaxed in the room for a bit (potentially with some Crown on the rocks, because, why not, we were done with responsible stuff).

Night came, so we washed up for dinner, which was goat cheese tart with bread, butter lettuce salad with an amazing shalot vinegrette, orange roughy with rice and veggies, and bites of creme brule, amaretto ice cream, and a chocolate haystack for desert. Y’know, a light dinner. We followed that up with some great big band music, and convinced my parents to stay for the YES/NO gameshow.

The host asked you questions and you had to last two minutes without saying yes or no. I lasted about a minute, my mom lasted just over a minute, Zliten got screwed on the second question, and my dad convientently went to the bathroom when his name was called. We also did the “jingle” trivia test, and got really close to winning since we had a lot of decades covered, but some others beat us.

We hit the buffet late night style but I kept myself to veggies and hummus and a little salad. Two more crown on the rocks were needed in the room (yay more bottle service) to wind down with TV and books, and then we drifted to sleepyland.

Thursday: At Sea

Another sleep until we couldn’t day. Ahhhhh. We got up and got on our pool attire and headed up to deck to read. We were unfortunately treated to cloudy skies and some wind. Booooo! Then, it started to rain. Double booo! It was about lunch time so we headed indoors and I had some salad, catfish, bites of lasagna, amazing ginger chicken stir fry, veggies, and bread.

It was not great weather, but it stopped with the raining, so I went out and chilled and read more. Since my Zliten had recently decided to shave his legs for triathlete purposes, I poked him to join in the sexy legs contest. He did alright, but he didn’t strut enough and some 16 year old kid won. Whomp whomp. We had many people come up and say later that they cheered for him though, so that was good.

Finally the sun came out, and we continued with the reading by the pool. I heard they were doing a contest called “Bar Wars” and I was all in for that, so I got to be a judge and got to grade the Mai Tai category. I did end up giving a point to the guys (they made it stronger) and the two teams tied. Oh well. Went back to reading, and then retired back to the cabin and had a few more adult bevvies and more book. I usually read SO MUCH on vacation and I barely got through ONE.

It was fancy night #2 – and this time I actually did my hair and stuff. I felt a little less than sexy due to the cruise bloat (not a whole lot of weight gain, just the rich food bleh), but my dress was forgiving so out we went for din dins. A quick stop in the cabin to have some wine with the parents, and we arrived for the feast.

Dinner was bread and butter, cheese from a cheese plate, Thai rolls, tomato soup, salad w vinaigrette, shrimp and lobster, pralines and cream ice cream, pb haystack. I suppose I should mention that these things are portioned out nicely. You’re getting a five course meal – they know you don’t need any of them to be gigantic.

We finished up the domino game and I finally won something!!! Woohoo!!! We started a new game and it was looking promising for me again, but put a pin in it to go elsewhere. We were looking to have one more night of debauchery, but it was hard to motivate. We spent HOURS digesting and reading in the cabin, but finally got back up to the dance club.

It was packed. We barely found a table. This was some FUN people watching. A group of older ladies were dancing, and one fell as Zliten walked by and he caught her. What a shining night in armor! She just got back up and kept dancing though, she was a trooper.

Finally, a song caught us and we danced. And danced. And danced. It was a blast! The DJ actually cut us off after hours and we begged him for more music but it was not to be. I joke that we close out the gym instead of the club nowadays (truth-I got the lights turned off on me in the pool the other day while I was swimming laps) so it was nice to have a flashback of previous selves.

We went back to the room to keep imbibing. We called room service for some drunk food – actually twice. We ordered fries and a salad to split, but when they came, we got like, five fries and a tiny side salad. We tried to go to the little cafe but the food didn’t look appetizing, so we called again for more food. Gluttons. However, since dinner was at 5:30pm and it was 4am, it was time for a feeding, especially after dancing for hours. Once the hunger beasts were satiated, we slept.

Friday: at sea

Slept until 10, which sadly was only 5.5 hours. My mom called and was like, “Hey there’s this sale, let’s go check it out”, to which I reluctantly, but dutifully like a good daughter got up ad checked out. Didn’t buy anything, I wasn’t really in the market for anything there, but it was fun to look. We then caught the end of the kitchen demo, and headed to the galley tour. I mean, I know they need huge kitchens to produce that sort of gluttony, but HOLY WOW the kitchen was big, and we only saw the “production floor”, there was a whole ‘nother level or two of food stores. Just wow.

It was time to feed the beasts, so we headed to lunch… shrimp fry, bite o mashed potato, bite spinach lasagna, pineapple, cauliflower, spinach, green beans, veggie soup, bread, bites of Asian food, and bite of coconut mousse thing. One thing I loved about the cruise food was the amount of healthy food that was just readily available at the buffets. Sure, I had bites of lots of things, but I was able to load my plate up with mostly veggies and a little fruit, and then a small corner of other things to nom on. I’m pretty sure that’s why I haven’t gained the “cruise 10” the last times I went. Also, not being afraid to skip meals. Lunch OR breakfast was perfectly adequate when I had super rich, big, 5:30pm dinners.

We did the read and nap thing a bit (in the cabin – bad weather – boo), and then the captain came on to announce we found something in the water and we were circling back to check it out! We went up to deck and it was an abandoned small boat – no one in it – but still… crazy!

Being the last day, we packed up our stuff (it all seemed to fit as it did before, which was nice). We decided to treat ourselves to a slice of pizza as a midday snack. Oh, woodfired pepperoni pizza, you’re my only friend. Back to the cabin, and we watched a movie – Red 2 – and I napped a little. Because that’s what you do the last day of vacation when it’s crappy out.

We just couldn’t do any more wine, so we gave my parents the last of our leftovers to drink before dinner, and then had a last feast – lingine w clam sauce appetizer (I didn’t expect to love it and got it just to have a taste – but OMG SO GOOD I finished the whole thing, oops), shrimp cocktail, salad w eggplant, zuccini, asparagus, tomato, which wasn’t really my thing, curry fish with rice and veggies , bday cake (we wanted to celebrate Zliten’s which was next week), baked Alaska, and a bite of cherry sorbet.

After dinner, we walked around, bought souvenirs, picked out our picture for the cruise (from the first formal night), and then went to finale show. It was called born to be wild, and was a lot of fun. Probably one of the best we’ve seen on a cruise. They had a for reals pink cadillac on stage the whole time. Legit.

We finished up domino game #2 and I won again! There was my mojo back! After trouncing the ‘rents and Zliten, we went back to the cabin and did final packing. Zliten decided to be indulgent and grab something from the cafe, and I told him to surprise me, and he came back with a black and white mousse to split. I had a few bites, cried fatty pants uncle, and then we went to sleep.

Saturday: Go Home (BOO)

Up at 745 (latest possible time I could) and showered just in time to get out of the room by 8. I had one last breakfast of the typical fare:corned beef hash (ahhh, til next cruise), bacon, half an english muffin, pineapple, waffle, and a hash brown. We got off the boat as scheduled at 9:45, drove home uneventfully except driving through a huge cloud which was scary, and got home around 1:30 and hugged our couch and bed.

I was lucky that this was a rest week for me, so no formal run/bike/swim – though I did rack up quite a few steps walking around the boat, and over 5 hours of active water time with snorkeling and diving (and dancing). I was a little up when I hit the scale Monday – but it took 3-4 days of normal eating to see normal numbers on the scale, so it was a total success! I highly recommend an intense long run before vacation to rev up your metabolism to fight off greedy eating weight gain. No injuries to report, and no nights I don’t remember. 35 is about being old enough to know where the line is better, I suppose!

Also, I just want to be back in Roatan with the fishies. Until next time…

If you’d like to see more diving/snorkeling pics, click here…

February Fun Times

By Quix

On February 28, 2014

In Uncategorized

Just wanted to start this with proof that I actually look nice once in a while and don’t always wear spandex or funny t-shirts…

February is one of those transitional months. March is a GREAT GREAT month due to birthdays, usually better weather, fun stuff, first metric of the season (Rosedale) which means I have to motivate myself to ride outside at least few times in preparation, and it’s usually just the start of the best part of the year (read: everything but Jan and Feb, really, minus a few whiny moments in August to get over the 100 degree temps). While January is just a whole lot of depressing suck, February there is at least light at the end of the tunnel. Helps that we’ve had some awesome, although unpredictable weather.

Also, there was no racing in February. It was kind of nice! I mean, I’m racing on March 1, so it’s close, but I’ve had 5 weeks and 6 days of just train and build, train and build, and it’s been great. I find I really figure things out a few weeks into a block, and if I’m racing too often I miss that “learn, push myself, recover, and grow” part of training where I can do it in a less judgmental place.

I may be the ONLY person in the world that gets excited about trainer rides, but I love them, and I’ll top 400 miles on my bike JUST in February (how’s that for bike focus), and with 200+ in January when I really wasn’t trying, I’m pretty happy with butt in saddle time in 2014 thus far.

I’ve been keeping up with the swimming longer and doing focused sets and it seems alright – I’m posting slightly slower times overall, but I suppose that makes sense when I am swimming twice as long (if I could hold that 8:50-ish pace I can hold for 5 miles for 10 miles I would have a HUGE PR but I can’t, not yet) and also taking rest during sets as prescribed. I haven’t felt any major breakthroughs, except the one in which Zliten actually likes spending an hour at the pool, so I’ll take that one, it will pay divedends. I’m looking forward to hopefully getting some (a wee bit chilly but that’s why I have a wetsuit) open water time next month.

Running – yeah. She’s an unpredictable mistress. I’m looking at about 75 miles this month. MUCH better than Januray, as expected. I’ve alternated between 4 shorter runs (~5 miles) and 3 with one longer run, but ramping up after the half has gone slower than I’d like, oddly enough, you can’t just add swim and bike volume and expect to adapt immediately.

I seem to have maintained my run gains for the most part, though its changes day to day. My standalone 10 miler earlier in February was like UGGGGHHH to keep 10:45s, and my post bike 9 miler last weekend felt like prancercise to stay around 10:30s (both flat courses on nice overcast temperate days). Next month, I aim to ramp back up in miles to ~30+ per week (it’s run month). I responded really, really well to higher mileage with appropriate rest in the fall, let’s see how that goes with more swim/bike mixed in.

My body has been in decent shape. I tweaked my back once, but that resolved itself in just over a week (and I got a great swim focus week so there’s that). My heel seems to be doing weird things – it’s touchy but if I take care of it I’m doing just fine. Lately, I need a 1 mile or so warmup to get going faster paces, which is probably a GOOD THING anyway.

I am definitely playing the shoe shell game. It seems as if a week+ of wearing my hokas straight triggers heel ouchies. Sads. I love my clouds. They feel great sometimes and not others. I’m going to work on alternating them with other shoes, but I don’t think they’re my one go-to shoe. I’m not sure if my new Asics are wonderful or horrible (I have only put ~25 miles on them), but my old shoes I did the marathon in (that are not QUITE defunct yet) seem to be a safe middle ground right now, so I’m wearing those as well on days I feel vulnerable. My heel feels excellent walking around on these new massaging sandals, so I bought them and am doing that. Icing it also feels nice. I’m going to race in the old Sauconys tomorrow, and hope the rest week next week works its magic.

Not much progress on the scale, but it feel like my shirts are getting larger in the waist and smaller in the shoulders, as they tend to do as I ramp up for tri season. It’s weird, I only fluctuate about 5 lbs total between my OMG I’m so bloated and my “not bad, not bad” weight right now, but it’s like night and day to me how I feel at 175 and at 180. So bizarre.

And now onto ALL THE COOL THINGS from February:

I swam the longest I ever have in the pool (I had it all to myself and I just forgot to get out) and then ate delicious pizza.

I actually participated in Superbowl Festivities this year (go sports! win the things!), with some DIE HARD Broncos fans. While it didn’t end well, their house was SUPER festive and it was fun.

I got to game again! We finished the session (I lost my chicken pet to a sub-machine gun… SADS) after taking over a dirigible and found our portal in the arc d’triumph in Paris. Now, next session it’s my turn to tell the story. Of course, I picked something ambitious and scary and hard but its what called to me, so look forward to that in March. 🙂

We celebrated Valentine’s day. It’s funny, we called everything over the long weekend was “romantical!”. This was my romantical shirt, and I made romantical caesar salad and romantical arugula and cheese ravioli. I even put a heart on it because I am teh cheesy.

Aieeeee bike ride outside! I am a wimp and skipped two planned outdoor days earlier this month due to cold or wind, but this day was perfect and it was a great 43 miles around the veloway with a great brick run after.

Zliten’s meal for me was romantical filet mignon, lobster, cauliflower, asparagus, and Brussels sprouts on the grill. It was a great weekend of eating. First, though, we got our cheer on for the Austin Marathon with our cheer hats, handing out bananas around mile 18. I think I prefer cheering that one instead of racing it, but maybe I’ll do the full some year.

President’s Day, we were treated to a great sunset, and I saw it as we came out of our romantical (read: ouchie) massages at the Beijing Massage place. Also, who put Pinocchio’s nose on me? 🙂

I finally got into Birds (yep, procrastinated again and ended up at the walk-in place instead of supporting my awesome friends of friends who do hair, oops) for my yearly shearing. And…uh… it’s kind of short. But it’s super low maintenance, and will be rather nice instead of dragging around almost a foot more of sweaty mop through two-a-days. (Upper left, before, upper right, day of, lower left, day after, lower right – sweated and showered in and looking more like my normal fro.

Wicked!!! This was one of my Christmas presents to Zliten (and to me, of course :D). We got some yummy greek food first, and then settled in. The show was FANTASTIC. We both loved it. I forgot that Broadway shows usually run ~3 hours, and we were shocked by the 11pm conclusion. Made getting up the next day hard – I’d say we’re old, but really, we’re just triathletes.

And, that’s pretty much a wrap for February fun times. March should be pretty legendary, so onward and upward!

What was your favorite thing you did in February?

Adjusted Reality

“Reality can be beaten with enough imagination.” – Mark Twain

Tag: travel

Oregon Coast – 50 is a Temperature in Summer!

Portland – Beauty is in the Eye of the Beerholder

Coasting

I’m on a boat! (Cozumel/Roatan/Belize Cruise)

February Fun Times

About Me

Search

Pages

Archives

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

Login