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Janie's August 2005 Journal Wednesday 8/24: Well, I'm sort of recovering from losing about an hour's work on this page.. :( I was working on my laptop and the battery went out just as I was saving it all... it didn't save. I don't quite feel up to re-producing it now. When I do, I will put that info. in this spot. I do feel up to giving the basics of what I said and then continuing though... so here we go! :) I am on my way to a Mainland adventure and I'm sooo excited! :) I'm going to RawStock, 2 weeks of H&F Camp, the Organic Athlete Conference, the SF Veg. Society's celebration of World Vegetarian Day, visit my dad for his birthday and more! My wonderful hubby is going to take over my responsibilities at home as best he can. At first my son will be there to help run our family run business, but then my son's going to join me for the 2nd week of H&F Camp and fly back with me. That means my hubby's going to be running the store solo for over 2 weeks - and we're open a lot (12 hours/day, 6 days/week). I tried to get him to just let me close the store so he could go too, or at least shorten the hours for those last two weeks, but he wanted to keep it open. It IS best for the store, but I hope he survives it well... I had an update on here, which is what took most of the time before, here's a quick summary: we might be able to get into some acreage within the next year so we've been working on that as much as possible; my book's release date has been pushed back due to basically life happening - sorry; I have been really busy trying to get myself on this trip and have not been following the 811rv lifestyle as well as I have in the past - still raw, but overworking which also brings on sleep & sunshine deficit resulting in exercise deficits as well - I'm hoping I straighten it out on this trip; I broke my toe in Ashtanga about a month after I started - doing an acrobatic move on cement - it healed beautifully; the fungus in my other foot's toenail appeared like it was getting better, but hasn't quite overcome the fungus yet... So, onto my trip... You cannot take fresh produce from here to the Mainland although you can take food, so many raw fooders will do smoothies and/or salads and such in order to eat on the flights. I am doing the same. I made myself over a gallon of green smoothie (2 heads of cos lettuce (was going to use kale, but didn't have any), water and I don't know how many ripe raw cooking bananas) and a veggie dish in a ziplock bag so I didn't have to deal with the container later (yellow wax beans cut julienne style, cherry tomatoes cut in fourths, some of the little lettuce leaves from the cos lettuce used in the smoothie, all with a dressing of kalamansi juice). The smoothie worked out really well. It lasted the whole time, fed me well and was quite simple to deal with. The veggie dish unfortunately didn't keep and I had to discard it. :( I guess I should have brought the kalamansi juice separately or something - I'm not sure what went bad in there.. perhaps it was the tomatoes. Oh well. I really wasn't that hungry when I went to eat that anyway. My dad had some organic celery and organic plums set aside just for me so I had some celery when I got there. I sure miss my hubby... Here's a picture of my food.. like most of the pictures here, you can click it to enlarge. I took it in the airport parking lot 'cause I thought y'all might want to see... and my hubby wanted one with me, so that's here too.
When we took off in the airplane I was looking out at the ocean as we flew over it and away from shore and heard a little girl behind me say, "I'm going to miss the ocean, Mommy." I thought to myself, "I'm going to miss it too." It was such a beautiful day and I longed to be in that ocean instead of the airplane. I reminded myself of the adventures to come and that I'd be back to go in the ocean another time. I enjoyed looking out at out planet from the airplane. The clouds looked really nifty so I took a picture. On the longer flight we were flying at sunset and it was interesting from the plane too, so I took some pictures of it as well...
Picking up my rental car was an adventure as well. I didn't realize that they didn't have shuttles from the airport and didn't know where to go for a while. I asked and was told to take the airtrain, which at first I thought was another name for BART, then found out that it's the transit at the airport area that takes you to a BART station, or the rental car area, or other places like that. I then thought that maybe I could have gotten away with just renting the car for driving back from Seattle and taking Greyhound up there & public transit the rest of the way. It's what I would have done back when I lived in that area before... But then my hubby and best friend over in Hawaii were already worried about my safety as it was - with the rental car and all, so I figured I should just stick with the rental car. I discovered when I was picking it up that the company I had the reservation with doesn't let you go to Washington with it - only states bordering California. No good. So then I had to go around to all the other rental car counters and find out what they had and if I could afford it. Most of them had 4 week rental maximums - which wouldn't do as I'd be at Camp at the return time, and/or were more than twice as much - way beyond my budget or cc ability. Finally I did find one that would work and it was *only* ~$250 more than my initial reservation, which was a really good price relative to the rest. After that it all went rather smoothly. Well, except that picking up the car was strange too... I was supposed to go in the garage and pick the car I wanted in the the type of car I was renting, but I couldn't find the section for economy cars... It turned out that there was one left and I liked it, so we were off (the car and I, that is). ;) I took out my MapQuest directions so they were handy, reviewed them and drove out to my dad's. It was late at night so there wasn't much traffic. That was perfect as I wasn't used to driving on freeways or merging highways and such. The last time I lived here I didn't even have a driver's license as I preferred public transit. That made it all an even more surreal experience - things were the same, but different and I remembered many of them but not completely - like I had dreamt of it or something - or this was a dream about where I'd been... Thursday 8/25: My dad has central heating/cooling but let me open the windows to sleep last night as I need fresh air especially when sleeping. I was a bit chilly that first night as I realized that none of the clothes I brought would cover my lower back when curled up for sleep, so I wrapped something around there and was able to sleep better. I'm rather mucus-y this morning & actually woke with puffy eyes for the first time in years... I used to get that when I lived in this house before. I wonder if it's the house, the air, the airplane flight, the straying from lifestyle 811things or what... Yeah, people are going to see me in person and think I touched up my online photos, heh. Oh well, I am what I am. Right now I'm a bit mucus-y...and a bit dehydrated. I guess it's 'cause it's drier here than Hawaii overall.. I'll have to drink more water I suppose. That will take some getting used to. Maybe it's just from the flights too - a friend of mine, Diana Fairechild, used to be a flight attendant and then got environmental allergies. She wrote some books about health, yoga and airline stuff. I think I remember her saying that you get really dehydrated on flights. I did some Ashtanga after getting up this morning as my lungs and body really needed it. It helped a lot actually. My dad has wi-fi so I can work on Internet things even outside if I want. :) I have some unfinished projects still to finish, so I worked on some of them outside. I sat on a planter bench they have in-between two flowering lavender plants planted in each end. :) It was nice to get some fresh air and sunshine again. I felt much better after that. I realized when I was out there that it had been over 24 hours since I'd been outside and I truly missed it. Even that little bit was enough to help me feel better. Later my dad and I went to the farmer's market in his town. It was nifty. Before that we went to the local grocery store so I'd know what organic stuff they had at what prices, etc. At first it seemed like there weren't any farmers as the end we started on was all craft and other sorts of vendors and such. The farmers were at the other end and there were a couple of organic ones. :) I wanted to get an organic watermelon, but didn't find any. I did find cantelope, berries and other things though. It was fun. We went to the local Safeway afterwards 'cause they had a sale on organic plums for $1/pound. Safeway... heh. The plums looked good so I got 'em. Before we went to the market we stopped at a yarn shop 'cause I remembered that I had found one online that was down in the same area. It turns out that my dad knew exactly where it was and his wife was tangibly instrumental in the store being there at all - as she got the two owners together for the business. Their year anniversary is this weekend I think. :) I've been wanting to get some 100% cotton chennile (sp?) in order to crochet myself some nice fuzzy bathing suit tops for casual wear. They carried a brand that makes it so I wanted to check. Yay! They had it, so I got some in various colors. I brought the wooden crochet hook my hubby made for me with me in case I found some. Now I can use it. :) We went back home & unloaded the produce & ate a late lunch. I had only had the 3 plums my dad had set aside for me all day and I was a bit hungry. The strawberries I got at market were a bit squashed, so I ate them - all. ;) I had gotten 3 green baskets for $5 - organic too! You couldn't even get one of those baskets of organic strawberries in Hawaii for that much - and these were fresh too! Yum! :) After that we went to a couple of camping supply places to see if they had pop up tents and other nifty things. My hubby and I wanted an easy to set-up tent for camping at the beach so we can go there after work on the night before our day off (which is late at night - around 10 or so), set up the tent easily and then be able to wake at the beach in the morning. We've found that works better than trying to get to the beach in the morning as we don't feel like going all that way at that point. If we're already there we have more time and energy for it. Then if we have stuff to do later in the day we can still get our beach visit in... ANYway, I didn't find any pop-up tents and was talking to the guys over at REI about it. They told me where I might find some, but also mentioned that those kinds are not all that strong for the winds that we get in Hawaii... I realized that they were right as I've used a pop-up tent for kids to play in before and the supports themselves were probably too bendy for the wind. They showed me the clip-on tents though and since I'd just set up my dad's tent to test it (which has a few of those clip things) I knew that was easy as well. The ones at REI were too expensive though, so I waited. There was a discount sporting goods place that was having a sale on tents 1/3 off, so we went there next. They had something similar but not as nice of materials for about 1/2 of the price before the discount. Still, I was unsure if I should get it. Long story short. I discussed it with my hubby and am getting it tomorrow as the sale ends before RawStock does. My dad and I went back to his house and had dinner. I had 4 ears of corn from the market (organic) and a few tomatoes. Then I remembered that I wanted to take pictures of the food for you all. I took the pictures, but not everything I bought was there 'cause I had already eaten some of it, heh. Oh well. I worked on some work stuff & chatted with my friend, son and hubby online before going to sleep. Here are the produce pictures:
I also took a picture of the nifty plant my dad and his wife had on their counter. It's a sweet potato. It looked so pretty there I had to take a picture...
Friday 8/26: I'm going to RawStock today! Yay! I still need to go and get the tent... and I have some more outstanding work to finish first. Things don't start 'till 4pm so I've got time. I slept in to catch up on my sleep a bit and am a bit jet lagged time clock-wise, so I got up rather early.. I'm not gonna' stress about it though. If I'm late, I'm late. I was going to try to meet up with some friends I made in Hawaii at one of the potlucks who are in the Sebastopol area too, hope I have time! :) Well, it looks like I don't have time - as it's already 4pm and I'm just now leaving to drive there (it's over an hour away). Oh well. I'll be offline for the next few days so will have to post all the pictures and stories and such when I get back. I'm sooo excited! :) Tuesday 8/30: I'm back from Rawstock now and it was terrific! I loved every minute of it! :) My only regret (besides not having my hubby, son and friends from Hawaii with me) is that I didn't take more pictures - and that I didn't have a clone in order to go to things that were going on at the same time. ;) Today is my dad's birthday, so I want to spend time with him. That means I'm just going to post some pictures for now & then talk about it all later... Enjoy! :)
Wednesday 8/31: I drove to Ashland today after doing a tad of work stuff via the Net and getting some food for the road. I was late in leaving (again) so I just stopped at Raley's on the way out to see what they had in organic produce. They didn't have much fruit I wanted, but I did get 2 baskets of org. strawberries, 1 basket of org. cherry tomatoes and a bag of org. grapes. I ate the strawberries and most of the grapes on the road. I was saving the tomatoes for dinner. It wasn't enough, but it's all I had. Luckily I noticed a sign about 2 hours into my drive by the side of the highway indicating that fresh organic produce was at the next stop. I went there and it was a nifty little store sort of thing in somebody's barn. California Certified Organic produce and a few other non-organic things there. Here are some pics of it and some of the things I saw later on the trip today:
I ate about 3 of the apple pears on the road and then had 3 oranges, 3 tomatoes and the lemon cuke for dinner at the hostel. When I was eating there, Igor Boutenko came in looking for someone who wasn't there. I noticed him and said, "Sergei!," he looked up and said, "Hi" briefly and finished the conversation. I talked to him outside for a bit, not realizing that I messed up on his name until after he left, BTW. I'm so embarrassed. Sorry Igor! I got their names mixed up when I first learned them and now I'm sort of stuck with that. I've got to get it straightened out! Ug! Oh well, I'll let him know tomorrow and apologize... Anyway, he said that he usually goes to a hot/warm springs in the area for about an hour and asked if I wanted to go. :) Yes! :) So he's gonna' pick me up tomorrow morning at 10 and we'll go there, he'll bring me back and then I'll drive to the Portland hostel. I really loved talking with Victoria and Igor when they came to where I live this year and missed them at RawStock. I emailed Victoria about possibly seeing them when I was here, but she said she would be in LA then. I guess Igor didn't go with her or her plans changed...Cool how it worked out anyway. Oh, and since I haven't gone back and updated that part of the journals yet... here's a picture of Victoria and Igor with me back in February where I live...sorry about the poor lighting, it was all we had...
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