Beachy!

We've just returned home from a week on the lovely shores of the Gulf of Mexico. The early days were cool and stormy. Most folks are disappointed with weather like this on vacation, but in my opinion, there is no better storm-watching than at the beach. These first few photos were taken over the course of only a couple of minutes.

Yikes! The above photo was at mid-day! We certainly had a front-row seat for Nature's thrilling, drama. Once the sun came out again, we braved the beach, but it was still a bit too chilly, and was best enjoyed from the comfort of our condo. The company of wonderful friends, good food, cocktails and cozy movie watching got us through the first few days, then finally the beach looked like this:

We took full advantage. It was pretty tough to leave.

I am still hard at work trying to learn what diet changes will help me most -- studying the Wahls' Protocol which allowed Dr. Terry Wahls to recover from almost complete disability from MS. Getting my head around some of the major changes I'll be making, and working them into the family table is overwhelming, so whatever transition I make at this point will be more of a "leaning-in" rather than the "flipping of a switch" that was my vegan transition. Since I'm still pretty confused, and was feeding lots of lovely folks at the beach with different dietary requirements and preferences, I just made a lot of food, sometimes multiple versions of the same dish.

My last morning at the condo, I ate as much delicious, gluten-free, veggie-ful food as I could stomach, knowing I'd be driving through gluten/gmo/dairy/non-organic/fried wonderland for about 7 hours. Seriously, I cannot be the only one who sees the need for healthy road-trip food. In this age of celiac, diabetes, gluten/dairy/nut intolerances and various and sundry autoimmune disorders it seems like a ripe opportunity for some entrepreneur. Maybe it'll be me someday after we're done paying tuition.

Back to my beachy-Buddha-bowl:

These leftovers were eaten cold from the fridge. They are: quinoa prepared with organic broth and garlic, sauteed potatoes and onions, crispy sauteed broccoli and half a raw avocado. The beautiful, delicious bowlful saw me through most of the journey home.

For a late lunch, Wendy's seemed to be a reasonable road-food candidate for the two gluten-free folks in our carload, so I carefully studied the menu. My daughter's gluten-free friend chose a baked potato with sour cream (she is not dairy-free). I chose a southwest barbeque chicken salad. Of the listed ingredients, I only needed to ask for the chicken, bacon and dressing to be omitted. (I know, the Paleo model of Wahls' Protocol allows for meats, but I won't choose non-organic meats, and don't really think I will ever choose chicken anyway because of what I learned in my macrobiotic dabblings). So, settling back into the car, I got ready to dig into salad greens with fresh tomatoes and roasted corn. Already on the highway, I lifted the lid and found . . . cheese. No, Wendy's, cheese isn't actually a salad green. It's surprising nobody at Wendy's thought it might be a good idea to list cheese as an ingredient. Piece by piece, I eradicated the offending morsels. Everyone else was done with their food by the time I got my first forkful.

All in all, it was a great beach week. I am inspired anew in my quest toward health and innovative, forward-thinking road-trip-franchise-creation.