We just arrived in Cedar City, Utah for the inaugural Fire Road Cycling mountain bike race. The rocks are red, the air warm, and our car’s air conditioner on the fritz. What can you do? Cars get old and wrinkly, too.
Road tripping gives me the munchies. As I threw stuff together last night—after getting beat by my swimming rookie husband in a sprint session at the pool—I wondered what on earth I would do for seven hours in car, on Paleo. Last time, driving down from the Big Sur Marathon, I gave in to just about every crappy convenience store craving. Well, within reason of course. I’ve never craved a Twinkie.
As my Paleo guru Nell says, “prep in advance and pack as much as possible.” I didn’t have a lot left in the fridge (I always go on a fridge-cleansing mission, even before short jaunts), so I cobbled together all the Paleo goodness I could find. Exhibit A: Polar Tuna packs (don’t buy this brand, it’s dry!), apples, salt-and-pepper pistachios, almonds, crispy seaweed, and … drumroll please … Bare Fruit Granny Smith Apple Chips. These, my friends, are a popcorn-tortillachip-ricecake-pretzel lover’s Paleo dream come true. (Not pictured: carrot and celery sticks and cantaloupe balls.)
Back to the apple chips. I discovered these at Costco (this blog is becoming a tribute to that crazy behemoth of a store), where an 11-ounce bag set us back only 5$. They are perfect. Ingredients? Organic apples. 58 calories a serving. Some crispy, some just a little chewy inside. How? Something called “bake drying.” Don’t ask me how they do it, but man, it’s delicious.
Considering my breakfast consisted of a lone smoothie at 4:45 a.m, I was a hungry at oh, 7:30. And 9:45. And 11:58. These little snacks, combined with Mark’s delicious press pot followed later by a tall Starbucks it’ll-pass Verona, kept me going all the way to Utah. We passed the hours chatting with our roadie, and listening her audiobook, David Cross’ Why I Drink. He doesn’t touch my heart like Sedaris, but it’s pretty funny stuff.
And to leave you on a humorous note (or humourous, if you’re Canadian), behold a little exchange we managed to overhear in our apartment parking lot the other day.
Hipster teen #1: “Man-i-to-ba??”
Hipster teen #2: “I swear that’s not even a state, man.”
HT#1: “Oh, it’s in CANADA, look at the little leaf on top of the ‘i.'”
HT#2: “I get it. It says ‘Eh.'” (Our license plate just happens to be EEH 245. No connection to the Canadianism at all, boys.)
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