nightlife

PA and i made it out to killington tonight to get in the real world and check out another local bar. killington is about 30 minutes from ludlow past plymouth and the lakes. we went to JAX, which felt like the middle of nowhere but was pretty big. it's on top of a laundromat and we were probably the only two females there among a group of post college guys and a very low-key bachelor party. we liked the bar, one b/c it was more our age than outback, and the bartendar was really nice and she really talked to everyone at the bar. 


we noticed that no one we meet in bars is from VT and that they are always going to be golfing at okemo golf resort the next day. there must be a special at okemo for sundays for large groups of guys wanting to get their game on.


there was a 100 mile relay on route 100 that we saw on our way to the bar and the people were running by GM on our way home tonight, i'm not sure i would ever want to run at night by myself even w/ a headlight especially in these dark roads.


oh, and we saw a bear on our drive home! it looked pretty small but it lumbered across the street pretty quickly.


i think i'm just plain old allergic or super intolerant to alcohol. every time i drink i get sick and today i broke out in hives, so i guess i will have to do some experimenting to figure out if it's all alcohol or what, but after a drink and a half today i felt ill and the first drink ended up in hives (note to self, no more rum). the weather is back to being crisp and fall-like, it's a nice change of pace, but swimming in the lake today would have been much nicer with a hot day.


have a good night!

drama llama

more drama in the kitchen- apparently i flopped on both baking things i did. so really, lets just leave me out of the drama and i'll just do some back stuff like bulletin boards and putting dishes out onto tables...it's amazing how different personalities clash and i'd rather not be the one in the middle. i'm getting where both the chefs and the dietitian are coming from, but it would be nice if they could communicate w/ each other and not have me as a middle funky ground.

today's vermonting walk/hike was hawk walk, which starts at hawk mountain resort. i took 2 of the more gung-ho ladies up salt ash road which had some snazzy houses on the mountain. i wish i nabbed a shot of lunch (mac and cheeseeeeee, man, i wish i could live off this stuff...which also was apparently too salty...). after four weeks here i think i finally got the wednesday self-serve lunch plate servings down. minus the part where i went back for 2nd helpings of the mac&cheese:D i may have finally found a mac&cheese that i like more than the kraft box version. i got to showcase my cardioboxing skills (my nutrition supervisor joined in on the class in her skirt no less!) and then the highlight of the day- spontaneous decision to go swim in a lake!

the fitness/intern coordinator lives in a house by lake echo (it's a private lake except for the state park section, which is still not re-opened since hurricane irene damage) and she offered to show us how to enter through her section so we asked the kitchen to hold our dinners and we just drove there after work still in our workout clothes (i had like full workout pants on). there's a little dock and a floating platform a bit further. the water was actually warm (it probably helped that it was in the mid-90s today) and you couldn't touch the ground, which was really nice b/c the storm apparently brought lots of ickies to the bottom. it was sad when i couldn't haul myself onto the platform...so some more upper body is necessary or else i will just have to keep pretending that i just like to float around in the water all day...lol. 

now i can say i swam in a lake! i think i'll use my vibrams as water shoes just so i can avoid the murky bottom by the dock and walk up onto the beach when i don't even have the energy to flop onto the deck like a beached whale. you'd think as a fitness instructor i would have some mad muscles, which i think oftentimes the women here judge me for when i'm not as strong or as quick as the other intern. sometimes i think they see me as more approachable b/c i look more like them, but sometimes i don't know if they take me seriously b/c i don't look like joy bauer or jillian michaels. but it's something to adjust to, and it's always a work in progress, but it was really fun jumping into the lake (much less daunting than the cliff diving).

happy first day of summer!

i would never run a restaurant...

...but i sure like to eat at them :D

we went to the downtown grocery on monday night for their prix fix dinner to celebrate karen's bday and her last week at GM. man, this stuff will burn a hole in your wallet but leave your stomach so happy. it was $25 for a starter, entree and chef's dessert (i didn't get a solo shot of the dessert...) but i got the tomato soup (delish!) and salmon w/ fingerling potatoes and wild mushrooms. dessert was a trio of pineapple and basil sorbet, chocolate souffle w/ i think a caramel kind of sauce (or knowing vt, maybe maple), and a mini donut w/ a raspberry sauce. 

i also got a rum and ginger beer (they make their own) w/ mount gay rum (which was very tasty). eum eum. a wonderful night to celebrate one of the nicest ladies i've met here. the clientele at the restaurant is definitely averaging around 65+ but that might have to do w/ the price of the place, but for the prix fix days it's definitely worth a trip (plus the people there are soooo nice!)

but onto intern stuff- first real day in the kitchen (9-2 w/ an hour break for lunch). i got to use the flour mill and grind brown rice into brown rice flour (quick but also overloaded the poor machine and the poor thing went crazy). with the brown rice flour i made gluten free cheddar cheese sesame crackers (which also had tapioca flour and sorghum flour). it was all sorts of complicated ingredients and i really just wanted butter and flour and cheddar cheese. plus, i have no idea the point of having three different flours so i was feeling a bit lost on how to cook w/o really measuring (i love the ginormous mixing bowl machines). the last 10 minutes before lunch time were sort of frantic (thus the not wanting to ever run a restaurant) and i felt like i needed to be meryl streep playing julia child in that movie where she practices dicing onions to be really fast.

after that it was a bit smoother (sort of). i made the chocolate zucchini cake (which was actually squash b/c there was no zucchini) and keeping track of quantities and baking/cooking to those proportions for a certain number of people is very awkward (case in point, using MasterCook program it said to use 2 and 5/8 of an egg...). plus, i got the wrong number scooped out so i had to do lots of fiddling to spread the batter out (which made for small looking cakes) but they tasted pretty good. keeping track of what people do and do not eat and allergies is also a whole 'nother fun game so there are charts all over the kitchen w/ the menus and layouts of everyone's diet.

tmrw's hump day! it's supposed to be killer hot so the walk tmrw should be uber fun. ack, i can't believe i missed taking a pic of my first attempts at cooking in large batches!

water, water, everywhere

from last night's shenanigans at the downtown grocery to today's exploring, this was probably one of my favorite weekends here so far. lisa and i went to the downtown grocery which is in ludlow- it's a very cute, tasty, but pricey place. it has a great fresh foods menu (they have a garden in the basement and on the roof) and everyone there is super nice. the plan had been to get 1 drink, but we ended up talking to everyone at the bar and the owner until past midnight. haha, which means drunken food search which is very difficult when everything in town closes early evening...but we ate their homemade potato chips and sampled some of their signature mixed cocktails so i'm excited to try out their dinner food tmrw night! 


but anyway, got about 3 hours of sleep but was ready for getting out of green mountain and going for a hike (it helped that i probably ate 3 extra dinners in a "please soak up this alcohol" late last night. we got lost getting to manchester for this hike, so 2 hours later we made it to the lye brook falls trail. it's a pretty straight forward trail to the waterfall- about 3 hours round trip at a leisurely to steady pace. the incline wasn't bad at all and a stop to enjoy the view.

lye brook falls is one of the tallest in the state of vt. it's a gorgeous waterfall and the water runs over all the shale-like rocks.

there was a small path up to a higher point on the falls, you can kind of see me in the middle of the picture.

after the hike we got some gelato at a really cute diner in downtown manchester (i'll remember the name eventually). and then headed to dorset which was about 10 minutes from manchester to look for the quarry that the locals use for swimming and cliff diving. 

the quarry was pretty big and there was a good number of cars parked outside. one section w/ the lower rocks had families w/ lawn chairs parked and smoozing, but once you walked around the quarry to the other side, were the teenagers and teenagers who looked about 12 smoking and drinking and diving off the cliff (all seemed like bad combinations). there's some shallower jumps at around 6' but also a 30' and 40' jump. after watching this girl stare down at the 30' jump for about ten minutes i figured i would start out at 30 and see how things went...

the water was freezinggggg. i was definitely stalling jumping off and couldn't look down other than to check if there was anyone below i would kill before i just had to jump off. it was tons of fun, not sure if i'll make it to the 40' jump but maybe next time when the weather gets really warm.


happy father's day and happy sunday!

airport runs

i much prefer participant pick-up/drop-off to the rutland airport rather than the manchester-boston airport in new hampshire. most likely b/c rutland is only 30 minutes away whereas machester, nh is 2 hours away. but i made it and now i want to nap...haha. i thought about stopping by in new hampshire but it didn't really look like there was much to see. next time i'll have to plan better. 


taught the full morning schedule of classes- circuit strength, cardio walk and then a short and sweet stretch so i could drive one of the women to the airport. i've been slacking on the food pics so here are some goodies to drool over:D

from the top left clockwise: thursday salmon dinner, a shot of the avocado chicken pizza (that little strip coming off is 1/2 of a serving, so you get to pick 2 slices), sirloin steak dinner (this is of course a shot of my roommie's dinner, i got tofu, but i figured you'd want to see the nice cooking on the meat instead of more tofu), and last but not least- more tofu w/ sauteed squash and polenta (i'm not sure how i feel about polenta...)


getting laundry done and hopefully a nap. happy saturday! 

getting into the groove

it finally sank in that it's already my 3rd week here and every week these women are truly inspiring. it's awesome to see them forming bonds w/ each other but also killing hardcore aerobics classes that are on par w/ fitness classes i teach to athletic college students.  


tonight's dinner was probably one of my favorites (behind the chili and something else i can't remember)- tilapia, quinoa, pico de gallo, red cabbage and i think a lime/avocado sauce. eum eum eum. 

it's tuesday so also baked dessert night! and carrot cake finally made an appearance. after 3 weeks of relatively no added sugar in any food (except for when PA and i runaway from GM) sugar added to foods tastes really sweet. it was a carrot cake muffin-esque dessert w/ i think a maple syrup crunch. 

the awesome fitness idea for future reference- toe taps to strengthen the shins to prevent shin splints. just have a bend to the knees and one foot in front and tap it out like in legally blonde during the court case. so tiringggg!

have a good night! it's pouring here!

adding another state to my list

so my rules for checking a state off as a state you've visited are:

1) you have to get off the highway

2) have a meal or go somewhere touristy or otherwise

which means i get to check off new hampshire! being "stuck" at GM all week and falling asleep around 10:30 means that PA and i try to pack in as much as possible on weekends. after the shenanigans of saturday, sunday was spent in woodstock and new hampshire. woodstock is roughly an hour northeast (i think) of ludlow. we (PA, linda and lisa- staff participants) hiked part of the mount tom trail (6 miles) to one of the overlooks above the town of woodstock. 

the hike was nice, minus getting little pebbles and eaten alive by mosquitoes (the mosquitoes here are crazy!)

the town is so pristine (think no gum stuck to the sidewalks and everyone in polos and khakis). i kept expecting people to break out into song and dance in the middle of town. there's lots of cute shops (also some very expensive). and apparently really good restaurants in the area.

this is the nicest looking inn from the outside but i was not a fan of the interior decorating.

on the way to linda's house in NH we stopped by to look at quechee gorge. you can actually hike down, but we had perishables for dessert and were pretty tired from the walk, but it's on my list to see sometime soon!

it was an hour to linda's place, i wish i had gotten a picture to show that i had actually gone, but i'm sure i'll be going again. linda is the nicest lady ever. she and her daughter cooked us dinner. it was soooo nice to help cook again and have a meal other than one at gm. we had panko broiled haddock, roasted carrots and asparagus, bamboo rice, corn on the cob and grilled caesar salad (take the whole romaine lettuce head and toss in olive oil and garlic, grill, and top w/ parmesean and dressing. eum eum eum. her house was set in a mountain overlooking another ski resort/mountain. amazing views. came back late and managed to brush my teeth and didn't bother to shower (it's becoming a bad habit since we workout all day, but don't do it- you're face will break out like hitting puberty).

unfortunately today was monday so back to the "real world." this really feels like camp sometimes. but i taught my first very own fitness class- total body strength and it didn't go too bad. dinner was no good and i didn't even eat it all so yay for the late night snack option :D