Travel tips

I'm on a plane to Houston right now and I just finished a delicious (and healthy!) snack. I'll be in Texas for the rest of the week and, although I can charge my meals to my grant, sometimes I prefer to bring what I can from home so that a) I'm never starving with no vegan food options in sight and b) I'm not tempted to go overboard on the "healthy" things I can find at airports (like a bottle of pomegranate juice with 62 grams of sugar--sorry, not healthy).
Inspired by Heidi Swanson's gourmet plane food suggestions, I decided to bring along some snacks that can pass through security and that I actually want to eat. I didn't really do a lot of planning for this, but here's what I came up with:
Two days ago, I stopped by our natural food co-op and resolved to avoid the very sugary Lara, Luna and Clif bars. I picked up some raw walnuts and Turkish figs instead. I mixed together enough for a handful (1/4 cup) of walnuts per day plus about 2 figs per day. Walnuts are high in omega-3's and I think figs have a good amount of calcium (not certain--we're in airplane mode, people!).
At home, the night before my trip, I came across an enormous Japanese sweet potato that Adam certainly would not eat, so I popped it into a 350 degree (F) oven for literally 2 hours while I packed. You want that sucker to be nice and soft. Once it cooled, I cut it in half and wrapped each piece in parchment paper and put them in a bag. I brought a spoon from home for my almond yogurt in the morning, so I kept it with me and it worked beautifully to eat the sweet potato like a parfait.
I always hear air travel experts say not to eat much while you travel and I try my best to follow that advice. For an 8:00 AM flight, I just had a small yogurt on the way to the airport, my handful of walnuts and one fig on my first flight and about a cup of the sweet potato on my second flight. I haven't had anything to drink but water. I will gain an hour in Houston so when I get in at 12:20 it will actually be 1:20 to my tummy and that's late for lunch. My co-worker, who is traveling with me, and I might stop in the airport for lunch before we head to the bus stop (the plan is to take the city bus but I'm not sure it's worth the hassle). When we check in at the hotel it might be as late as 3:00 and we may as well just get another snack before dinner. Another important tip for traveling is to try keep your meals regular. If you're flying to a different time zone, it's helpful to eat breakfast at the time you would eat it where you're traveling TO, that way your body is gearing up for a new day, even if you're headed to bed the night before your flight.
Thankfully, my travel for work just sends me south and in a generally similar time zone. But it's still important to be consistent with meals.
I will try to post some packing tips soon, as well as go over some of the key items I like to have with me while traveling.
Buen viaje!

The Lake Shore Limited

I am fortunate to live close enough to visit my hometown by train, though far enough for it to require preparation and planning. I take the overnight train from Rochester, NY, to mid-Michigan, where my two beautiful nephews live (and most of the rest of my family, of course). Trains are my style. As someone who grew up with little access to a motor vehicle and now as an adult who does not own one, I find the train more convenient than barreling across a busy interstate at 80 miles per hour, constantly focused on the road and in many cases concerned about the lake effect. On a train, I can knit, read, sleep, and think without worrying if my life is in danger. And I would say that's pretty convenient.

The Lake Shore Limited departs Rochester at 11:00 PM and arrives in Toledo, OH in the morning, where I board a bus to my hometown university train station. The best part of my ride is when, in late spring, the sun rises over Lake Erie just as we near a portion of the track that nearly touches the shore. There is nothing like waking up on the train and seeing the golden light at sunrise filtered through antique windows, sparkling across the water and turning even the most high strung among us into daydreamers.

I will always be a lover of bodies of water. Growing up among four of the Great Lakes and settling as a young adult alongside the fifth, I can't imagine what it would be like to live far from water. And, you know, I hear so many people say that, I know it must be in our humanity. Think of the great cities of the world--are any of them landlocked? The ones I think of--Paris, London, Portland, San Francisco, New York City, Toronto, Sydney, Boston...I could go on and on--all are settled along the water's edge. Even our little town, though close to Lake Ontario, straddles the Genesee river, connecting to the Erie Canal. We all long to see the water, to know that it is there and that it is waiting for us to wake up and smile as our train "choo-choos" us towards the ones we love.