...gets shared with the world on this blog. Not that there's anything too scandalous likely to happen on a trip involving two middle-aged women, horses and a blender.
Wait...back up a second...a blender?
There was a time when preparations for a road trip with my friend Suzanne would have involved packing my fanciest clothes and stopping at the grocery store to stock up on candy bars, Mint Milano cookies and bottles of water to gorge ourselves on during the drive. We never worried about what we'd eat once we arrived at our hotel. That's what room service is for, right?
Fast forward 15 years and it's a WHOLE different story. We're health-conscious, weight-conscious, cash-conscious, and too many other kinds of conscious to list. By the time we'd finished packing the car for the drive to Vegas, we were stocked up with:
- 12 bottles of water
- 5 containers of greek yogurt
- 3 packs of fresh blueberries
- 1 pack of frozen blueberries
- 1 bunch of bananas
- 1 pack of fresh strawberries
- 2 tins of sugar-free peaches
- 2 bars of sugar-free dark chocolate
- 2 organic chocolate bunnies (a girl's gotta live a little)
- Red pepper hummus
- Gluten-free crackers
- Low-fat mozzarella sticks
- 1 package of baked tofu
- Cherry tomatoes
- Organic tomatoes
- 2 packs of organic salad greens
- Fresh basil
- Ground flax seed
- Brewers yeast
- Protein powder
- Slivered almonds
- Sugar-free maple syrup
- Agave nectar
- Soy-ginger vinaigrette
Yes, I know they have grocery stores in Las Vegas. But how could we be sure they'd have exactly the right brand of greek yogurt? How could I start my morning without my fruit & yogurt parfait flavored with just the right blend of agave nectar and sugar-free maple syrup? I mean, an army marches on its stomach, people! And what's good for an army has to be good for a couple of aging gals with a horse obsession, right?
The drive took a reasonably fast 4 hours and 15 minutes, largely because we fussed and fidgeted and left Suzanne's house late by our usual hour or so. We told ourselves we were making a smart decision to avoid the evening rush-hour, but the truth is we've never managed to leave on time for a road trip together EVER. We know this about each other and we're OK with it. It's yet another reason why we're friends.
We stayed at the Hilton, which had an amazing $59 deal going on. More importantly, they had a new spa and very, very comfy beds. Let me emphasize the extreme comfort of these beds. So comfy, in fact, that they caused both Suzanne and I to sleep in every morning and miss our usual strenuous 6am yoga workout. Which we each do at home every day. Without fail. Honest.
As I mentioned before, we were in Las Vegas to watch the 2009 Dressage World Cup. Of course, along with the "watching" comes the "shopping." Every major show has a big trade fair filled with rows upon rows of horsey temptation. We planned to be good and just window-shop, but the nasty salespeople kept trapping us in booths filled with new breeches and cute jackets and we kept having to force our way out by waving burning credit cards in their faces.
It turns out that shopping for new breeches was a smart idea, since the four-day trip somehow caused all the breeches in my closet at home to shrink.
Apparently, packing a car-load of healthy food doesn't help if you visit places like this:
Yes, that's chocolate flowing in them thar fountains. And no, they wouldn't let me behind the glass to do a quality-control check. They would, however, let me jam as many of these into my mouth as was humanly possible:
It turns out I can jam quite a lot of delicate french pastries into my mouth. What can I say? It's a gift.
But what about that blender? Well, we did eat a very healthy breakfast each day. Because everyone knows that if you eat yogurt and fruit for breakfast, it cancels out the pastries you eat for lunch, right? And if you make a smoothie for breakfast and drink it rather than eating anything, you haven't actually eaten anything. See? It's all a matter of perspective.
What else did we do in Vegas? Well, we made a spur-of-the-moment decision to see Cirque Du Soleil's "O" which was fantastic. Suzanne made some new friends:
But mostly, we watched some amazing horses and riders, ate, drank, got together with old friends, shopped......
...and had a wonderful, fabulous time.
