Living an EXTRAordinary Life

I know its been a while since I posted.  I see a notice that I have a TON of comments. I know they are spam.  So as I am deleting them, I am reading them and I crack up.  The funny thing is that some sound valid from strangers and some are so weird and obvious.  Then there is this one:

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What?  Getting ex back?  What post talked about that?  LOL.

Anyway, some updates from my life.

Indy continues to improve.  The last ALT value was 131.  He just had another test yesterday, and we are hoping for that magic number of 100 or less.  I predict it will be 100 teens.

Joey turned 20 years old a few weeks ago.  I can’t believe that I have a cat that is 20.  He has been not wanting to eat and I noticed one day that he was having trouble chewing.  It went beyond just being picky.  I had also noticed a few weeks back that his breath really stunk.  Really badly, like nothing I’ve ever smelled before.  It was not the expected uremic smell from the kidney disease.  So I plop him on the counter by the good light, and open his mouth.  He fought me, but I saw what I thought was bleeding.  I called in my husband to help hold him down and I see a mass.  Pretty large, bulbulous and red.  Not bleeding though.  I also noticed excessive tartar on the teeth.

Not sure what to do, I took him to the vet earlier this week.  The vet was very concerned, but since he is so very old with compromised kidneys, we cannot put him under for a thorough evaluation.  The mass could be something really scary or it could be inflammation/infection from the bacteria on the teeth.  He managed to scrape some tartar off the molars and started Joey on antibiotics.  We’ll see if it looks any better when we go back for his acupuncture next week.

Me?  Well, I have only two more sessions of physical therapy left.  It has helped me build up some muscle.  Not sure though if it helped the pain go away or if it was a result of my stopping most intense exercise.  Was it the rest or the strengthening?  Or both?  I guess we’ll never know, but I am feeling a lot better. I still have pain when out in the cold that is probably a result of the arthritis.  I’ve been cleared to do my own lower body routines and cardio … except for running or jumping still.  I started taking a supplement for joint pain.  It’s not glucosamine/condroitin because I am not sure of their efficacy in humans, and they are made of shellfish, so they are not even vegetarian!  The supplement I’m taking is Zyflamend and I really think its helping.

Ah, yes, Pittsburgh.  Pittsburgh got 24″ of snow this weekend.  It took my husband and me 90 minutes to shovel our porches and walkways.  That’s working together.  Then another half hour to dig out the garage area.   I’m still stranded though, until the borough decides to plow the back alley where our cars live.  Even if they could mash the snow down, that would be extremely helpful.

Since we didn’t go anywhere on Saturday or Sunday, I decided to do some cooking yesterday.   I made the Southern Greens and beans again, cause they are so yummy and easy to make.   But this time, I decided to try one of the recipes in Alicia Silverstone’s The Kind Diet.  The recipe I attempted, Polenta Casserole with Seitan, was chosen simply because I bought polenta (not knowing what to do with it at the time), and thought this was a good way to use it up.

This recipe was sort of hard for me to make.  Because my ingredients weren’t quite right.  I’ll start at the beginning.

First step of the recipe calls for cooking the polenta and the cauliflower in a big pot for 30 minutes.  Okay, that sounds easy, right?  Well, I had pre-cooked polenta.  So I didn’t know what to do!  I figured that if it was already cooked and eventually being baked, that I didn’t need to do this step.  So I put the cauliflower into the microwave to cook, and thought that ultimately I would save time.

I went to the next step, which was placing the seitan slices on the bottom on the pan with the corn and asparagus.  Okay … another easy one right?  Not in this house!  The recipe called for 8 ounces of seitan.  One of my packages was exactly 8 ounces.  I took it out, placed it in the bottom … um, that didn’t even cover a third of the pan.  Hmm…. so I had a different package that was actually 1 pound and some ounces … I used that as well as the stuff that I had already put in there.  I had a little more than I needed but thought a little extra protein never hurt anyone.

So the cauliflower was done enough … and the next step was to mash the polenta and cauliflower until they were the consistency of mashed potatoes.  Well, I ended up needing to use the electric mixer and it was lumpy … I never got it right.  I put the extra ingredients in the mixture.   At the end I spooned in the peas and I added red pepper because I love red pepper.

Poured the polenta/cauliflower mash on top of the seitan mixture as directed and baked.  I had leftover polenta mixture, but I just tossed that.

And I thought to myself that this had better goshdarn taste well, cause it was a real pain to make!  It smelled really good!

Here it is right out of the oven:

And with the first slice taken out:

I made a small greens salad on the side, and sat down and took my first bite and ….. BLAH!  BLAND!  And I like bland food.  Or food as its supposed to taste.

What I think happened was two things … the seitan … too much and in this recipe it didn’t get a chance to absorb the flavors of things around it.  And the other being, obviously, the polenta topping itself.   I think I could make this again and have it taste better, but I won’t bother.  In the meanwhile, I’m going to separate the seitan from the polenta, and spice up the polenta and eat that and the seitan … well, I’ll see what I can dig up as far as sauces go and eat that.   I am a big fan of seitan so this was a disappointing experiment.

On the plus side, I made a really, really yummy soup a few days ago.  Recipe taken from the February 2010 Yoga Journal.  The name, Green Soup with Sweet Potatoes.  So yummy, and I ate it all over the next few days.

Here is what it looks like:

And its very important to note:

I tried a Sharon Fruit and it tastes just like a persimmons, except without a pit and the skin is edible. Yum!

I’ll be back with more stuff soon!

I don’t have a heck of a lot to say, but I do have a cute cat story to relate.  Maybe its just cute to me.

See, I honestly believed that I had cats for pets.  They are small, they are furry, they have whiskers and they purr.  They also eat cat food, watch birds and squirrels, and love to kill some furry fake mice.  But … they really act like pigs!  Seriously.  We meal feed around here, so everyone except Joey and Indy, who get more due to their age, eats two times per day.  But ten minutes after a meal, if one of us goes into the kitchen, we are followed by cats who meow and think they need more.  After Joey finishes one of his mid-afternoon or midnight feedings, a bunch of them will rush the bathroom door where he eats so that they can fight over who gets to finish the food.  I love when Joey finishes it all, they are all like “What?  Where’s all the food?”

The constant begging … I mean, they get enough food, but they always want more.  Maybe vulture is a better word than pigs.  But it just cracks me up the way they go nuts for any food.  If Matt and I are eating, they watch us.  Fuzzy loves to run into the kitchen and leap on the counter under the cabinet where the treats are.  Then he meows and looks cute.  Sorry, Fuzzy, you are a bit overweight, I’m not giving you any.  And its really hard to resist him!  He’s so cute.

But then, I guess I have no room to talk, as I pigged out on a vegan cheese pizza for lunch.  I should have cooked half of it, then I wouldn’t have eaten it all.  I should have only eaten half of it, and wrapped the rest up.  But I was so thrilled that there was vegan cheese that actually tastes good.

Yes, that is what I said.  I found vegan cheese that tastes good! And…. its not soy based.

I bought it at Vegan Essentials.com and its called Daiya cheese.   I bought both a small bag of shredded cheese and a pizza using it by the company Rossini.  When I received the shipment, I opened the bag of shredded and tasted it.  I did a happy dance.  I finally ate the pizza today and OMG … you can’t even tell its vegan.

So for all you dairy-avoiders, I highly recommend Daiya.  It’s expensive.  Check their website for where to buy it.  You won’t be sorry.

Yes, its true.

The 21-day Vegan Kickstart Challenge officially ended on the 21st of January, and they took the content down.  I thought they’d leave it up.  I didn’t start on the first day because of travel and illness.  But I was wrong.  The first time this year.  I have a few more credits, so its okay.

Where does that leave me?  Well… the same place.  Trying to maintain as high of a level of vegan as possible, and trying to eat more whole foods and cook more.  I have a ton of cookbooks and assorted recipes, so I can still try making tasty new things.   I can ignore the complicated ones.  The challenge starts again March 1, so maybe I’ll do it again, and this time eat the food as “assigned” every day, except for the days there are foods I don’t like.

Yesterday, I have to admit.  I had cheese.  At first, it wasn’t intentional.  We had had plans to go to a friends house to watch a movie, and we knew that we would be getting pizza.  I had 100% intention of having either half a pizza or a small one ordered without cheese for me.  Last time I had pizza, I removed the cheese, and had three toppings and extra sauce and it was yummy!  However, during the day, my delightful husband offered to make macaroni and cheese for lunch and I said that that sounded good … totally forgetting that I was eating vegan!   So, I figured … what the hey and ordered regulation pizza.  It was white pizza too, which I haven’t had in a long time.

My stomach didn’t feel too bad, even with the extra infusion of heart shaped Smiley cookies.  Or two.  Or three.  Actually, I was fine, stomach wise, but my nose clogged up big time.  I didn’t actually feel bloated until this afternoon.   So now I know … if I must, only one serving of dairy per day.

In other GOOD news, I had a very nice physical therapy session today.  My therapist says I am doing really, really well and gettting stronger every day.  She said that there was no reason I couldn’t participate in a racing event in October (location to be determined).   I can do a smaller race running, if I want.  Or walk a half.  Or run half of a half and walk the other half of the half.  That makes me happy.  Long distances are out for good, or at least a long while, she reminded me.  I can handle this.  It’s not like I could run a half marathon anyway. 

And I FORGOT to mention that I did try one other recipe from the challenge.  It was a Sunday morning, and I received the day’s menu, which called for Sweet Potato Pudding for breakfast.  That sounded really good.  It has oatmeal in it which I figured would make it nice and filling.  I had to cook and then cool the sweet potatoes (yay for the microwave at times), then I mixed it in the blender.  I put it in a bowl, sat down, ready to savor it.  And it was delicious!  However, it wasn’t cutting it as a breakfast for me.  It was truly a pudding, so therefore it became designated as a dessert.  Yay for dessert!  Using pumpkin would be equally delicious.  Adding the oatmeal is great … added fiber and even protein.  Not everyone is aware of how much protein is actually in oatmeal.  I ended up with a bagel with Better Than Cream Cheese.

I think for breakfast, it would have worked for me had I made oatmeal the traditional way and then mixed in the cooked sweet potato into the cereal.

I have been reading Wesley the Owl.  I highly recommend it.  It’s a very cute story and written well.  A fast, fun read.  Look for it on my sister blog later this week at jennreviewsthings.com.

Tomorrow, my Fuzzy goes for a teeth cleaning.  Wish us all luck.

The last few days, eating wise, have not been exciting.  I’ve been eating lots of salads and leftovers. We ate at Eat ‘n Park last night, where I had a veggie burger and onion rings.

On Sunday, I did make one new recipe, which  is the Vegetarian Swiss steak.  This is a seitan based food with tomato sauce, onions, peppers.  I did not have any green peppers, so I didn’t use, but I think it would have benefitted from them.  I also left out the mushrooms.  I am the one vegetarian in the world who does not like mushrooms.    I get asked that all the time “How can you be vegetarian and not like mushrooms?”  Um, us vegetarians like LOTS of things.  I don’t like broccoli, cauliflower or uncooked carrots either.  Or pears or grapefruit.  If this makes me weirder, so be it. 

Sorry, off on a tangent there ….

Here is how the Swiss steak looked right out of the oven.

And here it is on my plate:

looking a little less dog foody.

But I promise … it was tasty and the recipe makes a lot and I ate this for four days and now I am tired of it!  But it is a great source of clean protein and very low carb.

And here is a photo of the Roasted Red Pepper Soup which is less digusting looking.  I didn’t want to leave you with that other image in your memory.

On another note, exercise has been a little more exciting to report on.  I finally feel better and on Sunday, I worked out for the first time in a long time.  I ellipticalled for 30 minutes … which caused me to have a mini-migraine.  On Monday, it was full blown migraine, so I only did my PT … and Monday is the day that I go to the facility, so it was a long session.   Yesterday, I cleaned up around the house and I did a cardio/ab workout followed by my at-home PT.

I’m excited about exercising again, and interested to see what my hip will and won’t permit me to do.

That’s all really for now!

We will start with the great news.  It’s about my cat Indy.  For those who don’t know, I’ll explain the problem quickly.  Indy is a big, fluffy black cat, who is 14.5 years old.  He always, always eats (with the exception of a 3 month stint of anorexia a few years back) and he never, ever vomits.   In October and November, he had had three separate incidents of vomiting and pooping everywhere, and not eating.   These would last one day and he’d feel better the next day.   After the third episode, I took him to our regular vet, who saw nothing on exam, so we sent for blood testing.  The results of that showed pretty severe liver problems.  For example, the ALT was 499 and the normal high is about 100ish.  A follow-up x-ray showed nothing but a bit of arthritis in the spine.

He was referred to a veterinary internal medicine specialist, where he received an ultrasound, which was also inconclusive, and a fine needle aspirate of the liver was sent out for cytology.  At this point, we were looking either at cholangiohepatitis or cancer.   And the cytology didn’t help.  The first order of business was to treat for the cholangiohepatitis, which is a long course of antibiotics.  If the liver enzymes stabilize, then its likely the hepatitis and NOT cancer.

Thursday, I received a call from the veterinary center and guess what?  His ALT was down to 160!  Yay!  The antibiotics are helping.  Not that I needed bloodwork to tell me that, as he has returned totally to his kitten like antics and his very very large appetite. 

This is my bad boy Indy

Now for the Vegan Challenge.

Saturday was my weigh in day and I was down 2.2 pounds.  Yay.

Friday food was good.

*Breakfast was oatmeal with maple syrup and peacans

*Lunch was leftover couscous confetti salad

*Dinner was out and I had bbq seitan pita with fries and a salad

Saturday, well, I did remain vegan except for some accidental mayo, but healthy wasn’t as strong.

*Breakfast was hash browns and an English Muffin

*Lunch was at Burger King … a BK veggie and small onion ring

*Dinner was Domino’s pizza … no cheese, extra sauce and black olives, onion and spinach

But that is not overcomerable (is that a word?) … I will do better this week for sure, and I hope to make a return to doing cardio.

And I really wish I could get pictures into this blog!

It’s a new year.  I thought I would start it off by doing something a little different.  Resolutions are boring.  I mean, who doesn’t want to get fit, lose weight, get organized, etc.  We all do!  It’s the rare person who can claim to be all of those.

I only knew that I wanted to try to eliminate dairy.  Why?  Well, there are many reasons, but the one that makes the most sense is because I am allergic to the milk proteins casein and whey.  Let me tell you … casein and whey are hidden in everything!  And the other MAIN reason is that as a vegetarian, it only makes sense to progress into this way of eating, for me.  I already refuse to wear leather, suede, wool or use products that have been tested on animals.   If you want to get into it further, you can certainly find reasons why many experts are saying that it is not good for us, and you can certainly find out how dairy is an even crueler industry than eating the cows that dairy comes from.

And because I was giving up the dairy, I stepped it up to eliminate eggs and to try to eat as many whole foods as possible to try to ease up reliance on convenience foods.  I think that switching to whole foods, foods that come from nature, that I actually have to cook and/or prepare, will be the key to my finally reaching my goal weight.

This style of eating is also just naturally low in sugar.  I am not deliberately eliminating that.  If I find something vegan and has sugar, I will consider it.  And I don’t mean fruit.  Fruit sugar is another thing altogether.

To help me with this challenge, I decided to follow the guidelines and recipes of the 21-Day Vegan Kickstart by the Physician’s Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM).  You can find information about it here:

I tried to start on Monday, but although it was vegan, except for some butter, I don’t count it since I relied on what I had and not on whole foods.

On Tuesday, I made the Confetti Couscous Salad.  I had to adjust it, as I thought I had raisins and cabbage, but I had neither.  Well, I had cabbage, it was just not edible.  I deliberately left out the carrots and substituted dried cranberries for the raisins.  This was absolutely yummy.

Wednesday, which was even better, I had oatmeal for breakfast, for lunch I had the couscous salad leftovers (and I still have more!) and I made the Carrot Red Pepper Soup, without the carrots, so essentially it was just Roasted Red Pepper Soup.  This was very easy to make and very tasty … but needed some spices … maybe some Italian seasoning.  I also made the “Southern” Beans and Greens.  I put Southern in quotes, cause I am quite sure that in the South, it ain’t vegan!  My beans of choice were organic Pinto and my greens were kale.  I thought these were really good.  This mixture could also be wrapped in a tortilla (thanks for the idea Christy) or served with rice, which is what I had for lunch today.

I don’t aspire to follow the food plan to the letter, but I am definitely staying vegan, whole foods and using the recipes on the plan.   I’ll be eating out a little this weekend, but I will be doing my best to stick to whole food, low fat, and vegan.

It’s only been three full days, and I can tell you I feel better already.  My stomach doesn’t feel all pouchy and full.  I feel lighter.  I hope to take off a few pounds at the end of this as well, especially once my cough goes away completely and I can exercise again.

Adios, my friends and readers, I’ll be back tomorrow with a more complete list and maybe some photos and other updates.

*I was actually directed to this particular challenge by my very beautiful, talented and intelligent friend, Emily, a Holistic Health Counselor and owner of Triumph Wellness.  Her site is here:  and her blog can be found here:   2 Comments

I’ve been experiencing hip pain for about three years now.   It first became apparent during training for the Gasparilla Tampa Bay marathon, which was held in February of 2007.  But I would just rest and then be able to run.  Only a few times has it affected my ability to run regularly.  The first being when we did the San Diego Marathon in June of that same year.    It bothered me while training for the Pittsburgh marathon in 2009, but I still was able to run that race and some half marathons.  But during training, I had many days of having to walk it out and not run at all.

I FINALLY broke down and saw a doctor.  A sports medicine orthopedist.   That day, she did some strength tests on me and I had an x-ray that showed nothing except some arthritis.  Because of that, I needed to get an MRI, which I scheduled for November 11.   Long story short, the Monday before we were to go to Vegas, I heard from my doctor who gave me the verdict that I had a hip impingement, which was irregularly shaped bones.  She said a lot of stuff that I quite honestly didn’t catch, but caught the important stuff.  Start PT, there is a surgery that is an option that is essentially shaving bone, no running and see her in about six weeks.

Ack!  What????  I did indeed call for PT that very day and scheduled my first session for the day before we left for Vegas, where we were doing half marathons, Matt running, me walking.   Of course, I did a lot of research, made myself ill.  I found a blog of someone who went through this and is doing well on the surgery.  I joined a yahoo! support group for people with this condition … FAI (femoracetabular impingement).    What I learned is that there are two main kinds of FAI … one where the femur bone has a bony protrustion or some mis-shape, which is called CAM and the other is the acetabulum, called PINCHER and some people can have two.  There seem to be mixed results on the surgery, but most people ended up going for the surgery because they could not control the pain.  They couldn’t run, go to yoga, bike, nothing.  But after surgery, supposedly one can return to these activities if the surgery is successful.

Do I even need to say I was scared? And running?  I had all the emotions.  I was sad that I might not be able to run again.  Then relieved.   Somewhere in there, I became alright with it.  Then I wasn’t.  Then I thought if I could just run a little.  It didn’t have to be training all the time.  A 5K or a 10K would be great.  Just back and forth and back and forth between the emotions.  Finally decided that I wouldn’t use running as a reason for getting the surgery.  That would have to be a benefit.   I was quite honestly more upset about the fact that all of the FAI sites said no yoga.  I haven’t been to yoga in a very long time and I need yoga for much more than “stretching”.   Yoga is more important to me than running.

I’ve been faithfully going to PT twice a week (except for the two times this stupid cold has kept me at home) and doing my at-home exercises.  My therapist, Valerie, is very nice and smart.  She told me that as soon as I feel up to it, I can exercise and do anything except run, jump or strengthen the legs, as the PT is doing that for me.  That includes yoga “as long as it doesn’t hurt”.

Tuesday, 1/5, I had my six week checkup with my sports medicine doctor.  I, unfortunately, didn’t have a lot to report as far as fitness gains, as I haven’t done any real exercise since walking the half marathon on 12/6.  But we talked in more detail and as it turns out, all of my gloom and doom and worries were really overblown.  I’m glad I did the research, I won’t say that that was a mistake, but as it turns out:

*My impingement is so slight that it isn’t even really anything she would consider as needing surgery.  I have the CAM type, and it looks like one side of my femur is straight instead of curved.  It’s probably bilateral, as well as the arthritis.

*She feels my arthritis is the biggest problem.

*My pain is multi-faceted and includes tendonitis as well as the muscle weakness.  The tendinitis is on the right side, not the left and that is why the impingement and arthritis are not troublesome on the other side.

*There is a SMALL chance I have a SMALL labral tear, which is something that needs surgically corrected, but at this point, we are not going there.

*Might need a psoas release for full elimination of pain (no thank you!).

Basically, the treatment for the arthritis and the tendinitis is what I am doing … stop the activity that caused it (running), go to PT to strengthen, use heat, and other pain control methods, including yoga, which was highly recommended.    Low impact cardio and weight control.

When I asked her about running again someday, not because I wanted to run marathons again, but just for fun and shorter distances, and she said that I might be able to do that again.

So that is where I stand.  And I do honestly feel good about things now.  And very thankful that I won’t need to keep getting those steroid shots in my hip!  They are not very comfortable.

It was a dark and stormy night.  Okay, not stormy, but it was dark and cold and night when I woke up on the first day of this November, to run this race.  Oh, I was so tempted to stay in bed.  The temperature:  37.  Brrr …. really, that’s too cold even for early November.

But I got up anyway, and prepared for the race.  We were not supplied with timing chip tags, so I had to figure out how to put my chip on my shoe via the laces and this was not the kind of thing I can figure out easily at 5:30 in the morning.

We left later than we wanted to, of course, but were early and beat the road closings.  We had the good fortune of the starting line being near Matt’s office, so we used that parking lot and stayed in the car where it was warm.  And I had access to indoor plumbing … no outhouses for me.

When it was time, we made our way over to the start line, and Matt found the 2:00 pace team and I went to the back.  The slowest pace team was 2:30, despite the fact that we had 3:15 to finish.

There were supposedly 4,500 signed up for this race.  That is a small race to begin with, and looking around, there was nowhere near that.  Oh no.  I hate these small races, I feel so slow!

The race began through the South Side of Pittsburgh and as we begin, 80% of the people participating break away.  I start to have a meltdown and must have given off some meltdown vibes, cause there are others around who start to talk to me and I express my sincere fear that I will not finish in time.  An older woman says that I will and she will finish too, even on the sidewalk.  The younger woman, whose name was also Jennifer was super supportive and we ran together all the way through South Side to the West End Bridge.  I had to stop to tie my shoe (of course) and she said that she was going to keep moving and I told her that I would catch up.  I never did.  I did see her a few times looking back for me, but I had lost too much ground, between tying the shoe and then having to go UPHILL to get onto the bridge.

Around the corner from the bridge, mile 4, my leg started to twinge.  For a moment, I panicked and thought that at least the relay station was only 2.5 miles ahead and if I had to stop that was a good place to do so.  But then I said “My leg doesn’t hurt, there is nothing wrong with it” and it was indeed fine after that.  I must have just stepped funny.

I ran/walked, ran/walked, all through the North Side.  There were few people behind me.  It was very surreal, I was practically alone, feeling like I was merely trudging along on a practice run, except that the streets of Pittsburgh were open just for me.

The prettiest part of the trip was a part of Northside that I had only seen once, at night, during a Halloween 5K.  There is a park somewhere nearby and a walking trail to the right.  But we were on the road, of course, and the trees were still holding on to their leaves.  This was essentially the “turnaround”.  One more uphill ramp, to the 31st street bridge, and down into town and back to Southside and we are done.

Along the way, two girls taking a walk break said that they were surprised that the race was so competitive.  They didn’t think running was so big in Pittsburgh and didn’t think they would be all the way in the back all alone.  They were there for fun, not for speed.  At this point we were all averaging somewhere around a 12:00 mile, so we weren’t exactly going slow.  But we felt like it, as it was so isolated back there.

Around mile 7.5, 8, somewhere in there, I knew I was probably done running, or at least trying to run for any length of time, and I was also nauseated.  At this point, I looked over and saw someone who looked like she was struggling too.   She was also not feeling well, so we helped each other by walking together.  She was walking faster than me, so I had to keep up.  Then she slowed down, and I sped up so she had to keep up with me.  Mile 10 went really fast, but the rest of them seemed to go on forever.

Eventually, my nausea did pass, so I was happy about that and Rachel and I did get to the finish, and I did run across the finish line.   In pretty much 3:00.  That is my third slowest half marathon time.

I would not have done nearly as well had it not been for the kindness of strangers and the support of Jennifer and Rachel.  I finished 138th out 139th in my age group, and I actually think that is a bit funny.  There were not even 2,100 finishers in total.

One thing I was surprised about was that they did have water until the end. I hear about the people at the end who don’t get any because the race runs out.  There was no sport drink after awhile though, but I don’t know if its cause we were late, or if they didn’t pass them out.

The pros of the race:
*The course was nice
*Our goodies … this HUGE reusable shopping bag from Dick’s, a reusable water bottle, a towel, a finisher’s hat (which we got at  the expo) and a long sleeved technical tee
*Plenty of water and food at the finish (although could that be because half of the registrants didn’t show?)

The bad:
*Not enough participants
*There were not time clocks at every mile and I don’t think all of the miles were even marked
*The medals don’t have the year on them
*Not a lot of crowd support

One of the problems with blogging about something that happened in the past is that you tend to lose of the detail.  I’ll try to remember the important things as I go.   Fortunately, two of the last four of our days were relatively low key.

MONDAY:

We went on the Kilohana Plantation Hike.  This is the same plantation that we went to the day before for breakfast and shopping.   The hikes starts with a train ride, the same train ride that the people who only want the train ride go on, then we get off to hike, have lunch, and pick fruit in the orchard and then get picked up by the train back to the plantation.

Our group consisted of mostly people older and less fit than us, except for one who was most likely younger than Matt.  She had a “personality” disorder.  At first, I found her annoying, but then as I realized that she wasn’t just weird, but wired differently, I warmed up to her.  What can I say, it was morning, I wasn’t fully functional myself and had late realization.

So we board the train.  The first stop, the one that started the hike was fun.  We got to feed the wild pigs and the goats.  Of course, the goats being goats tried to hog all the food.  There were itty bitty baby pigs there.  The smallest ran into the grass though, and we didn’t get a picture of them.  Matt took pictures and I did the feeding.   During the hike, the learned that there are 350,000 wild pigs on the island, compared to the 65,000 human residents.  And that is why there are no more peacocks on the hike.

The hike was long, but slow.  And interesting. We saw a lot of different flowers and learned about the parasitic banyon tree.  We saw a 100 year old mango tree.  It had long since stopped producing fruit, and a banyon took over, but for a mango tree to still be standing after 100 years is really something.

After the hike, we had an okay lunch.  I had a salad and chips.  The salad had the little purple flowers that supposedly tasted like mushrooms on it, but I didn’t taste that with all the other veggies mixed in.  Then we headed for the orchard. On our way, a horse came over to talk to us.  I thought about my niece Maddie  right then and how happy she would have been over the horse coming over to her.

The orchards …. ahh… the guide cut up a delicious pineapple for us to share.  Never had a better tasting pineapple ever! I tried some new fruits … lychee (pronounced LEE-chee), and I can’t describe it except that its juicy and sweet.  Oh so yummy.  I had a longanberry … several of them, they look similar to the lychee, taste like a canteloupe.  And a star fruit, which I have seen here in grocery stores and never bought, cause I didn’t know what to do with it.  Turns out, you slice it like you would slice a cucumber or zucchini into rounds.  Its flavor is reminiscient of a kiwi.

The highlight of this excursion was Hobo Gray, a friendly cat who hangs out by the train station.  The train driver told us that she was abandoned there six months ago and they have been taking care of her.  She was limping, and he promised that if she wasn’t feeling better the next day, she would go to the vet.  He seemed very concerned about her.  Hobo let us pet her.  We were there before anyone else, so we got to her before it all got to be too much for her.   That was our only cat fix of the whole trip.  All the other cats seem to be true ferals and run from us.

After the hike, we went to the beach.  It was hard to believe that our trip was almost over and we wanted as much beach time as we could get!

TUESDAY:

We didn’t do very much on Tuesday.  A lot of reading and hanging out at the condo, outside.   The event we had planned was water tubing.  This was run by the same company that we went ziplining with on Friday.   So it was the same deal, get there, get gear, take a long truck drive, tube, eat, go back.  The actual tubing was okay.  I think it was definitely geared to families, as it was mellow.  I would have liked some waterfalls or bigger dips or something (nothing that would cause us to fall out of our tubes though), just a bit of a thrill.  It was relatively relaxing, or as much as it can be in an organized group.  The stream was 2.5 miles long, which sounds short, and it was.   The lazy river at Sandcastle (for those who know it) … that is about what this was, plus tunnels and a guide or two.   I would have liked a bit more Raging Rapids (at Kennywood) for the experience.    I thought the lunch was better than the zipline one, but the people who worked this event were not as friendly or nice as the zipliners.

WEDNESDAY:

Was essentially our last full day here in the sense of having the condo.  We mostly did nothing in the morning, although I do think that this was the day I was reading on the lanai, and saw a turtle, and then another.   I called in to Matt and there were at least six or seven swimming around together.  It was cool.  Matt ran in to the condo to get the camera and started snapping pictures and actually got several that shows the turtles.  That was this year’s theme for the trip, turtles. 

Afternoon on the beach, where the “waves” were the roughest all week, but no critters joined us in our swimming.  We stopped at the grocery store to get something for dinner and breakfast the next morning, and packed and read some books.

THURSDAY:

Got up and cleaned up the condo, showered and finished packing.  Sigh.  I can’t believe 10 days went by so fast.  When it got there, it seemed like we had so much time, and then whoosh! it was all over … but we still had some vacationing to do!

We “checked out” of the condo at 10:30 and headed west to Port Allen Airport where we went Powered Hang Gliding.  Let me tell you all … this was frightening!  I’m quoting Matt here, but its like riding a motorcycle in the air.  There is nothing around you.   Yes, we are seatbelted in, but that wasn’t good enough.

I admit that I was this close to making him land and stop.  But what stopped me?  I didn’t want to be only the fourth person to make them do that.  According to their website, only 3 in 18,000 people have done that. I am sure that there have been more students since us, but that three still stands.

It wasn’t the turbulence, it was just the being in the air with no outer protection.   About half way through though, I started to relax and enjoy it.   Matt got the option to steer his plane, I didn’t.  I was offered, it was a “lesson” after all, but I was too scared.  Matt got to go into the canyon and I stayed over the water, that in itself another story, as I can’t swim.  But we were totally safe, because we were 6,000 feet in the air, and at that point, the air holds you in and if the engine failed, we had a long time to glide down and steer to a safe place.  But it didn’t feel that way at first!

Would I do it again?  Probably.  But no time soon.  It’s very cost prohibitive.

Then we went to lunch at Joe’s on the Green, and discovered too late that it was good for lunch as well as breakfast.  Oh well.  We did some souvenir shopping and then …. we had nothing left to do and our flight wasn’t until 10:50.

So we went to the beach and sat in a pavillion and read our books.  The couple who had gone hang gliding right before us were there too and they saw us and we talked to them for awhile.   Eventually, after the sun started to go down (and I got some awesome sunset pictures), we headed out the direction of the airport.   We still had time so we decided to kill some of it at Border’s, then grabbed a quick dinner and headed to the airport at just about the perfect time for that.

In Lihue … well, they never were equipped for security and security is outside … the check in counters are sort of inside …. they are under a canopy, but its still open.  Its weird, but you have to go behind security to check in and check your bags.  First, checked bags have to be inspected by the USDA for plants and produce.  Then you get your boarding pass, get your checked bag tags, take your bags to the TSA bag area and then you get into general security line.  Anyway, the set up is a bit confusing.  And then when you get to the gate, they check your carry on for contraband.  We watched one guy get harrassed over his case of papayas, that I am pretty sure he bought in the airport, cause he was behind me in the main security line.

The trip home was uneventual.  Didn’t sleep as much as I would have liked, but got some sleep in.  The flight out of Phoenix to Pittsburgh was delayed 45 minutes, but we landed only 15 minutes behind schedule.  My best sleep was during that delay.  The plane moved, its like a car, and I was out.  When I woke up, I was surprised we were still on the ground.  I even slept through the pilot announcements. 

We are working to get over our jet lag.  Saturday, we were not up that late, around 11, but Sunday, I was up at 1:30!  Oy!  I hope to be back to somewhat normal in a few days.  Its hard.

In Summary:

Poipu is a nice place to stay.  There are grocery stores and restaurants and Lihue is only 15 miles away.  Our condo, while not deluxe accomodations (our room at the Palazzo in Vegas was much nicer for instance), had everything we wanted and you cannot get closer to the water than these.   It did not really have a beach, as we thought.  Just a small sandy area that was shared with another big resort.   We didn’t spend time there because it was so small and lots of people.  But the turtle sightings were awesome as was listening to the ocean waves all day and night.   The place wasn’t air conditioned and the trade winds didn’t cool the bed and bathrooms like promised.  It was actually hot.

We may stay at the North Shore the next time, where we stayed the first time.  I don’t think we’ll find a condo or house so close to the ocean however.

Don’t think these beaches are like the ones on the mainland shore.  The fact that these are volcanos make the beaches very rocky.   If you surf, or body board or body surf, or snorkel, its great.  If you just splash in the ocean, its great.  But its not like the beaches in North Carolina where you can go out to your neck, still have sand beneath your feet and ride waves inland.   If you try that in Kauai, you’ll break your head.

I highly recommend “The Ultimate Kauai Guidebook” by Andrew Doughty.  He didn’t steer us wrong at all.

This was, by far, one of the best, if not the best vacation ever.