Holiday Vegetarian Road Trip to Oregon
I love being spontaneous and adventurous!
My husbands work schedule opened up last minute and we had the opportunity to go see my sister, parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins in Oregon for Christmas.
We loaded up the car with mountain bikes on top and headed to Oregon to surprise my family. I’ve never surprised my family like this and I was kind of excited & nervous to see their reaction.
First of all wow, how humongous is California? It felt like we were driving forever and we couldn’t get out of the state.
What was I thinking driving all that way?
We finally made it on Christmas day late in the evening close to 8pm. Mark and I surprised everyone! Their jaws dropped with shock and excitment to see us. We had a great time catching up and everyone couldn’t get over the fact that we were there. Luckily my aunt had extra room for us to stay on such last minute notice.
Brought my goodies with me!
As you probably guessed, I brought a cooler of food with us on this trip becasue highways are mostly lined with fast food joints and overpriced water. I didn’t make a salad at home before we left because we were in such a hurry to leave, so I threw all the veggies and whatever I had in the frig in a cooler. I had a couple of canvas bags filled with non perishables like baked organic blue corn chips, a couple green bars, raw almonds, oat groats, and protein powder.
When we got hungry we would pull over at a rest stop and make a salad in a bowl I brought. We would chop, slice and dice. Shake salt, herbs, and lemon for salad dressing right on top, toss it and salad was served. I also love dipping veggies in hummus so that was another snack I brought with us.
I brought a gallon of water and 2 smaller bottles of water. This way we could refill the smaller bottles and keep them in the front seat with us and put the gallon jug in the back. Buying water at a regular grocery store is always cheaper than buying it at a convenient store. Better yet, if you have filtered water at home, use that! Even when I have had to buy water at a convenient store, check out the price of a gallon versus a liter of water. The gallon is usually maybe 20 cents more than the 1 liter so better to just get the big jug. You’ll drink it all anyway!
I endulged!
I have to confess, my relatives made cookies and they were sure to give us some even though I told them we didn’t need any. Sooo, I did
fall off my program a couple times I have to admit. My body and stomach let me know it wasn’t happy about my choices so it was easy for me to get back on my program.
We practically made it to Oregon driving on vegetable oil, almost 600 miles! Wow! I’ll share with you the details of my veggie car in another post. I’ve had my veggie oil burning car for over 4 years now.
How did you do on your diet program over the holidays?
Kardena Pauza
Author of Easy Veggie Meal Plans for weight loss