Category Archives: Traveling

Traveling: Galveston, Texas

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Galveston is an island one hour from Houston, perfect for a day trip. With weather in the 80’s, it was good to be near the ocean, but the town itself can be seeing in just a few minutes.

“Waffle House”: we did it like golfer Bubba Watson and went to this southern cultural icon for breakfast.

Waffle House

Waffle House

Pleasure Pier: carnival rides and a scary roller coaster, but you have to pay to even walk through it.

Pleasure Pier
Pleasure Pier

The Beach: so nice to actually be able to lay in the sun during my Spring Break!

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The Strand Historic District: a neighborhood downtown with Victorian buildings, shops, and ice cream stores.

The Strand
The Strand
The Strand

 

 

 

Traveling: Easter in Houston, Texas

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Not really sure what being a godmother entails, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to spend Easter with my goddaughter in Houston, Texas. We didn’t really do anything religious, but it was still a blessing to see little E. smiling all the time. As you can see from the pictures, she loves photos and eating, just like me!

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Besides the waffle bar my friends S. and J. prepared for Easter brunch, we also went to a couple of different places to eat in Houston. The brisket at Goode Company got me hooked on Texas barbecue for the whole week, but I was happy to see Houston also has some creative cuisine at The Union Kitchen.

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Running, Eating, and Traveling in San Francisco

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As a continuation of our Valentine’s Day, the boyfriend and I went to San Francisco after Napa. The weather was perfect, sunny, and in the 70’s, so I couldn’t be more excited about running by the water. My friend J. and her boyfriend just got a new place in this cool part of town and from their apartment it was only 1.5 miles to AT&T Baseball Park and another mile to the Ferry Building.

AT&T Ballpark – San Francisco Giants
San Francisco Run
San Francisco Run

 

Tons of people were out enjoying the beautiful weather, so after the run we got a table outside at “The Ramp” for some drinks, guacamole, and crab egg benedict. Then, after a nap, more drinks and food at a Senegalese restaurant (“Bissap Baobab“) that was having live Brazilian music, which was the next best thing after trying to find a Brazilian restaurant open on a holiday without success.

Crab Egg Benedict
“The Ramp” Restaurant
J. and J.
San Francisco at night
Drinks
San Francisco at night

 

The pattern of drinks/food/sleep was repeated throughout the weekend, although we did walk what it seemed over 10 miles uncovering clues during the Chinese New Year Treasure Hunt. The first part of the clues had to do with the name of a San Francisco street, and since I don’t know much about the area, I wasn’t much help. We teamed up with a group from the Bay and eventually figured out all of the clues, even if it look us forever to cross the Chinese New Year Parade that was going on at the same time. We felt pretty good about our accomplishment, but ended up getting 30th place 😦

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New Year’s Eve (and eating) in New Jersey

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Okay, I know I said this a couple of posts ago, but this time I will really try to be quick. We spent New Year’s Eve with the boyfriend’s friends in New Jersey. For lunch we went to Stafford Diner, where D. got his favorites: creamed chipped beef and scrapple (pork trimmings – yuck). At night we had a blast drinking with the adults and playing with the kids. If NYE was any indication, 2014 will be a great year.

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Happy 2014 from D. and E. 🙂
Midnight Kiss

Running, Eating, and Traveling in Philadelphia

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It had been one month since my last outside run, but I was committed to my tradition of running in every big city I go to. In a very cold morning, I did a 5 mile loop around Valley Forge National Historic Park in about one hour, stopping for pictures here and there. This park is about 15 miles from Philly and it was the site of an American Revolutionary War encampment. It felt so good to run again! I really needed a break, but now I was ready to start training again.

In the afternoon the boyfriend and I tried to do some sightseeing, but it was so cold I really didn’t want to be outside, so we just did a quick city tour by car, walked by the river for a little bit, and spent the rest of the day at the Barnes Foundation, an impressionist / post-impressionist museum. We had to get tickets online in advance and when we got there we still had to wait in line, but it was worth it to see their extensive collection of paintings by Renoir, Monet, Seurat, Van Gogh… I always love it when I get to see an original of something I’m teaching about and the week before was all about Monet.

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To end our day we walked to Love Park, which has the “Love” sculpture by Robert Indiana. Super cute with all the Christmas decorations!

M. (the boyfriend’s sister) and I
Love Sculpture
The boyfriend and I

As for eating, I had to try a Philly cheesesteak, but since we went to a middle-eastern restaurant (Saad’s), that wasn’t even the highlight of lunch: the lamb shawarma was amazing! I love cities and all the options for authentic places.

Falafel
Philly Cheese steak
Lamb shawarma

Dinner time was “meet the boyfriend’s parents time” too! We met them at  McCormick and Schmidt’s, which is a chain from California I had never heard of. It turned out to be really fancy and really good, which is my cup of tea. Best of all, the boyfriend’s family is awesome. So glad everything went well!

Pumpkin Cheesecake

Eating and Traveling: Christmas in Minnesota (and Reno)

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So sorry it’s been taking me so long to update this blog, but with the holidays and all, I needed a break from running and writing to be able to fit more eating and traveling. In order to be able to catch up on everything, I’ll try to keep it short. Pictures tell a better story anyway!

Minnesota Winter

Minnesota Winter

Minnesota was cold. Very cold. We had negative numbers for the low and single digits for the high. And that was even before the whole Arctic storm hit! The last day was nice though, and I could watch my host sister K. and my host nephew C. go cross-country skiing and make snowmen.

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The rest of my time in Minnesota involved relaxing, reading, playing with the niece and nephew, watching Christmas movies (oh, how I love “It’s a wonderful life”!), and eating. I love the Christmas traditions they have there, like decorating cookies, making lefse (Norwegian flatbread), and opening my stocking on Christmas morning! Christmas Eve at Grandma’s is also very special, especially with the kids opening presents from Santa.

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Christmas fun wasn’t over on the 25th. A couple of weeks later the boyfriend and I had our own little Christmas celebration with the dogs. Morning walk, gluten-free egg-free banana candied nut muffin (yes, yum! I should totally post this recipe one day!), bacalhau, my Brazilian lime pie, and a talent show where I sang “Santa Baby”. Plus, I got a glass door for my bathtub and a pre-Christmas dinner prepared by D. with baked brie and all sorts of goodies. I’m a lucky girl.

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Running, Eating, and Traveling in Las Vegas, Nevada – My second HALF-MARATHON

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It was a great 7-hour drive last weekend to Vegas. I know it seems like a lot, but I just love driving by myself. The road to Vegas from Reno is pretty straight forward so I don’t have to pay attention to any turns, and it is super empty, with  only a couple of towns along the way. By the time I got to Vegas my throat was scratching from so much car singing.

Every time I go to Vegas I do three things: hang out by the pool, watch a Cirque du Soleil performance, and eat a lot. This time was no different. Unfortunately, I had some work to do online, so I spent Sunday morning working… by the pool. Beautiful weather as always. The Cirque du Soleil show I watched this time was “Zarkana” at the Aria casino, which is actually a much larger and nicer casino than I had expected. Definitely one of the best Cirque du Soleil shows I’ve seen because it had the most acrobatics of all. The first 10 minutes is already worth the price of the ticket. As far as eating, I had pizza at “Five 50”, lots of food at the “Excalibur Buffet”, and finally a well-deserved three-course meal after my race at “Camelot”, the Excalibur’s fine dining restaurant, for only $16.

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Now, the highlight of the trip: the half-marathon. As you know, I had originally signed up for the full marathon but didn’t think I would have had enough time to train for it, so I changed it to the half. When I got to Vegas, I had a hint of craziness for a few minutes and thought maybe I should try to run the marathon anyway. I mean, how hard can it be to run for about 5 hours straight??? That way I would have reached by goal of completing 26.2 miles before my 30th birthday and then I wouldn’t have to train anymore. Yeah, thank goodness I got my senses back. Can you imagine how many injuries I would’ve gotten? I know I have the emotional state to do a marathon, but physically I need to train more to do it right.

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Since I had been there for the same race last year and knew how things would flow, I had a pretty chill day before I headed to the starting line five minutes before the official start. The first 2 miles were awesome. Then I got a side ache. Usually I just try to breathe deeply and the pain goes away a quarter mile later. This time it didn’t work. The pain lasted for at least 5 miles, so the middle part of my half-marathon was miserable. Fortunately I was able to finish the race, but I thought for sure that I had taken over 2h30, which was my goal, to finish it. I was exhilarated when I found out I actually had done it in 2h21 minutes! Can you imagine how much faster I would’ve been if I had been feeling well the entire time? I celebrated with tons of chocolate milk as my recovery drink 😉 I really don’t understand why there are no other night time races around. It was such a fun weekend. Can’t wait to go to Vegas again next year!

I run for chocolate

I run for chocolate

I did it again!

Traveling with Dad – Last Week :(

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So sad my dad is leaving! I’m really going to miss him! And Slick will be so depressed! Besides our nice walks in the neighborhood, we also went to Carson to see “Les Miserables” (very surprised with the quality of the performers) and on a cruise on the Tahoe Queen from South Lake Tahoe to Emerald Bay. Beautiful beautiful weather and scenery.

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This past week we also went around saying goodbye to all of my dad’s new friends. At his Tai Chi class they even had a little farewell party for him. Apparently I won’t be the only one missing him…

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Traveling: Apple Hill, California

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Two hours away from Reno, is a little piece of heaven called Apple Hill, near Placerville, California. We went there on Nevada Day and every place had a deal going on for Nevada residents.

At Kids Inc. we got apple crumble and apple cheesecake. They also had an amazing chicken pot pie. My mouth is watering just thinking about it.

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At Boa Vista Orchards you get to pick your own apples straight from the tree or you can buy any apple product at their market.

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My dad really enjoyed the apple part of Apple Hill, but what I really cared about was the wine tasting. We first went to Lava Cap, a winery that also has a gourmet restaurant, and then we walked to Madroña where they were doing cheese pairings as well.

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Although the wineries are year-round, the apple picking only happens in October, so be prepared to deal with long lines and lack of parking, but the combination of lovely weather, delicious food, and good wine is well worth the day trip.

Traveling in Reno, Tahoe, and Genoa

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All our travels this week were in the area, but we stayed in a hotel in Genoa for the weekend and traveled from there. I’ve been staying at the 1862 David Walley’s Resort for years and it’s always a relaxing time. Genoa is the first town in Nevada, dating from 1851. There’s pretty much one street and the Nevada’s oldest post office, Nevada’s oldest bar, Nevada’s oldest blah blah blah. It’s cute, but you can see everything in 5 minutes. The resort, though, is super nice, and has 7 different thermal pools with mineral water in the lower 100’s. Most of the hot pools are too hot for me, so while my dad enjoyed them and made some new friends, I sunbathed by the pool. Glad I did, because the next day, it snowed.

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So fall weather is officially here and the changing colors of the leaves have been beautiful. I took my dad to Hope Valley, on Hwy 88, to see the fall foliage before it started snowing for real. It’s always lovely to walk around the cabins at Sorensen’s Resort to see the bright yellow Aspen trees. Nearby, my dad got to play with some fresh snow too! (And just to remind you: it’s the beginning of October and the day before I was sunbathing by the pool.)

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From Hope Valley, we drove around the lake so I could show him my usual Lake Tahoe hot spots: Camp Richardson, Emerald Bay, and Tahoe City. Stunning as always.

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Just as I did when my host sister K. came for a visit, I also took my dad for a hike to the waterfall at Mt. Rose. This time though, the waterfall was even more spectacular because half of it was frozen.

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