Vacation day 2: Part 1

Greetings from Redding, Ca!!!

We are back on the road, and finishing the 2nd stretch of our road trip to Oregon.

When I last left you we had just begun our trip. For our first 6 hours did quite a bit to make the time pass. I read my new Fitness magazine, caught up on following other blogs, and began re-reading a book I bought about 3 years ago ( the most recent Dan Brown - author of the Da Vinci code- novel). I also grazed just a little bit. I had a protein shake, grapes, some sweet potato fries, a nectarine, and mini Graham cracker squares. Fir lunch I ha a kale salad wig raspberry vinaigrette dressing (yuuuum). I tried to keep my grazing healthy because it is so easy to fall into a boredom feeding frenzy during long car ride. I think I did pretty darn well!

The rolling hills

I managed to stay awake for the whole ride other than a quick 15 minute cat nap here and there right before we hit Sacramento. We stopped in Sacramento at around 5:30pm to visit and have dinner with my best friend, Talia. It was perfect timing... We were all getting a little cabin feverish and we were Hungry!!!

I have been craving Pizza and Beer for a couple weeks now so I requested the best pizza in town. What better time to quell that craving than day 1 of a vacation after making a new PR following a 10k?!?!

Talia took us to a nice restaurant called Chicago Fire. It is a lot like BJ's brewery, which is one of my FAVORITE places to enjoy pizza and beer. To drink, I ordered a pint of Blue Moon (with an orange). My icy cold beer hit the spot... I had to stop myself from ordering a second glass!!! Mom ordered a small caesar salad that I had a few bites of. Their homemade croutons were amazing!!! For dinner I ordered a thin crust, personal vegetarian pizza. It came with onions, bell peppers and olives... I had them add spinach and jalapeños.

Now... My idea of a personal pizza is a small circle cut into 4 chubby triangles. What did I get, you ask?!?!?! A massive pizza the size of a frisbee cut into squares! The pizza was delicious, but I was only able to eat three of the 10 sections.

For dessert, because there is always dessert, we ordered one of their chocolate chip pizza cookies. It was served in a small deep dish round ( the size I expected my pizza to be) with a half an inch of fresh chocolate chip cookie, an inch of vanilla ice cream and another inch of whipped cream and topped with a maraschino cherry. Thank God I was already pretty full an only took a few bites ( and ate the cherry!)

We were all stuffed after dinner, so we decided to take a walk before jumping back in the car. Talia took us all around her neighborhood, which was quaint, quiet and peaceful.

Before we knew it, it was time to jump our settled bellies back in the car. We said our goodbyes and headed on to Redding, our rest stop for the evening. We made it there a little after 11pm and got the last available room at the La Quinta hotel ( there was a fire in Redding and a lot of residents had to be evacuated so there wasn't a lot of vacancies). It wasn't the best hotel, but it was better than sleeping in the car.

We woke up at 7:30 this morning and jumped into gear. We grabbed breakfast at the hotel's continental spread ( I had oatmeal with banana almonds and syrup, 1 and a half hard boiled egg whites and a bite of mom's Belgian waffle), cleaned up and are back on the road. This part of the drive is much nicer, and more scenic than yesterday's drive, and were planning to make a few pit stops. We're expected to arrive in Bend around 2 o'clock today leaving us plenty of time to play :)

Pretty much the same Breakfast I ate at home!

Speaking of Play today, it's my Grandpa's 75 birthday!!! I love that man more than anything and I am so thankful to gave shared another year with him!

Happy Birthday, Pap!!!