Arizona!

We are having a great time finally getting some warm sun in Arizona. Also some great vegan nummies! Visited our friends Melissa and Josh in Marana, and Jossy played for 2 days straight with Paloma and Vera! So fun!

Melissa made us a delicious mushroom alfredo pasta, the perfect comfort food. 

                 Thanks for all the good food and belly laughs you guys!!

We went on the most beautiful hike there and saw so many giant Saguaro cacti that only grow here in the Sonora desert.

This Saguaro looks like it's doing the Tango!

They are huge! Here are some fun facts: the Saguaro is very slow growing: a ten year old cactus may only be less than 2 inches tall! An old cactus, up to 200 years old, can grow as tall as 60 feet, and when fully hydrated after the summer rains, can weight up to 4800 lbs!! I had no idea that the desert here was so pretty and had so much color and plants.

I call this my Desert Rose (Sally O'Malley!!)

 It is hot though for sure, here it is November, and it got up to 80 today, and that sure felt hot to us north Idaho peeps! It's cold at night though.

We are now in Tucson, and have been enjoying meals at "Lovin' Spoonfuls," an all vegan restaurant.

some freakin' french toast!

We have tickets to their special Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow with vegan turkey, all of the delicious sides, and apple and pumpkin pie! I can't wait!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, here we are at "Lovin' Spoonfuls" restaurant in Tucson having our Thanksgiving meal. It was so nice to just relax and not have to shop, cook and do dishes! And the food was delicious!! We even had leftovers. Although we missed our family, friends and pets at home, we are so thankful we have each other and this opportunity to be out seeing the world, and for the wonderful vegan food to eat too💗💗💗

Nevada: Death Valley, Donkeys and Vegan Vegas, Baby!

We had a long drive to Nevada through two national parks, Yosemite again and Death Valley National Park. We are glad that Jossy's teacher gave us her common core math workbook, because Jossy was able to do some math in the car. We are also trying out a new app online called "The Adapted Mind." I will take all of the help we can get for math, and this seems to be a fun break for Jossy from the workbook, with some good instruction if we need it.

Death Valley was cool, a very relaxing drive with not too much traffic. My favorite part might just be my favorite part of our trip thus far: wild burros on the side of the road!!

wild burros!

We saw four of these adorable little guys just outside of Beatty, NV. It really warms my heart to know there are still some wild creatures of the horse variety out there in the world. 

Next was Vegas. Just 2 nights and one full day here (which has been the way of this U.S. part of our trip so far, and it is proving to be way too hectic). Anyway, Vegas was really fun for our one day! It was sunny and lively with lots of music and things and people to look at on the strip! 

Vegas baby!

And it is a VEGAN PARADISE!!! I had no idea we would have so many options. We found a cheap room ($40!) at the Orleans and it was really nice (except the hot water was just luke). Our bellman told us all about the vegan scene and was so helpful! (Thanks Jeremiah!) We went to some super yum places: Go Vegan for chocolate maple pancakes and tofu scramble with green juice! They used a delicious vegan cheese called Violife that was amazing.  Also, Violette's Vegan for teriyaki cauliflower bites, chips and queso and yummy chocolate cake. But our absolute favorite was Pancho's Vegan Tacos: we had a huge plate of nachos, quesadillas and carne asada street tacos, also a fresh canteloupe agua fresca which was crazy delish and came in handy because the salsa was hot hot!!  It was all home-made and very delicious, and amazingly inexpensive for what you get!!

Pancho's Vegan Tacos!! Nachos bigger than Jamison's head!

Sunny (and smoky) and breathtaking California!

The drive into California was kind of depressing because of the drought. Everything looked so dry dead, and a lot was burned. On the way to Fresno, we could see a terrible wildfire that ended up killing lots of people who were trapped in Paradise, CA. On a happier note, we then met up with Jamison's friend Bob, from his men's group, in Roseville. Bob said he grew up in Roseville when it was 10,000 people and it has grown to over 150,000.
We visited Jamison's uncle Jason and his lovely wife Danielle, and their daughter Taylor. Such gracious hosts and their home is like pottery barn with an Italian flair, so beautiful and comfortable! Jason made us a hearty vegetable soup with garlic bread and olive oil, mmmmmmm!!!

 Last Monday, we arrived in Yosemite National Park. I have wanted to visit for years, and we finally got to spend an entire day in the park. Jossy's school was reading John Muir before she left, AND she just finished a book that was a mystery called "The Wolf Keeper," set in Yosemite, so she was excited to hike, yay!! Yosemite is a hiker's dream. Just spectacular!! The enormously huge granite cliffs go straight up from the valley floor and are so white next to the blue sky, it is simply breathtaking. I want to come back someday and spend at least a week.

We hiked to the top of Vernal Falls, a lot of steps but Jossy was a trooper, and we actually ran into a really nice family of whom the Dad started the Powerbar company!...and he had a nine-year-old daughter! Woot! All made it easier to get Jossy up the trail! 

We found just a couple of vegan options to eat in the park. The first was at Degnan's where the cook told us he was vegan, and he made us delicious avacado toast with gomashio for breakfast! If you don't know what gomashio is, it is a seaweed and sesame seed salt seasoning that is yummy and very nutritious! We also found the Beyond Burger and fries in the lodge which was perfect after our 18,000 steps and 150 flights of stairs that showed on Jamison's fitbit after our hike! The best meal we had though was at a hostel called "Yosemite Bug," about 25 minutes outside of the park. Jossy had spaghetti and Jamison and I had a really nice tofu vegetable stirfry with orange sauce, washed down with my favorite draft... Sierra Nevada Pale Ale (in the Sierras!) of course! They also sold Justin's dark chocolate peanut butter cups, that we purchased and saved for our hike. They tasted so good when we reached  top of the waterfall!!

Our World Trip!!! First stop: Beautiful Oregon!

     As we drove away last Friday in our rental car, Jamison suggested we all set an intention for our big trip.  A yoga teacher years ago told me that the most important thing in life is kindness and I think this is true. So I decided to aspire to be kind more, and also to learn to "let go" more. Almost a week into our trip now and I'm finding this a challenge! It may be that you're never really "away" from your life, even on vacation, and I tend to be a worrier. And, I have the remnants of a cold that I think may have turned into a sinus infection so not feeling great. And...MATH anxiety! We want to make sure that Jossy keeps up with her math, so just making sure she is on track is stressful. I sure hope this is something that gets easier! Other than these minor annoyances, our trip is starting out wonderfully!!
   Our first stop was in Oregon, to visit our dear friends Tim and Dana, visit Alexa who was finishing part of  her P.A. residency in Vancouver, and to go to some excellent restaurants in the vegan mecca of Portland!! We hiked on Mt. Tabor and just hung out and ate a LOT. The restaurants we went to this time: Blossoming Lotus, always a fave, so delicious! Sweet Hereafter, a warm new bar-restaurant with a delicious vegan mac and cheese for Jossy! Next Level Burger, so satisfying if in the mood for a burger and shake!! And for brunch, Off The Griddle (now merged with the A.N.D. cafe that was always a favorite for breakfast, especially the waffles and biscuits and gravy!). All were fun and delicious and of course Portland-y eclectic!

     Next, we picked up some yummy deli food from Whole Foods and drove to the coast to magical Manzanita! We rented a really cute little airbnb right down the street from our old home, and right in town. Hung out with some old friends there, and Jossy visited her old bff Maya! It was just like they picked up where they left off, and they had a ball drawing tattoos and playing computer games and tiddly winks. We went on a beautiful hike through the rainforest (and boy did it rain that day!) and to the beach. Our second day the sun came out and we enjoyed some surf and sand time on an almost empty beach.

     Our last stop in Oregon was Ashland. We stayed in a beautiful old hotel called the "Columbian Hotel", very European with its lots of steep stairs and even shared bathrooms! Since we are on a budget, we thought we would try this and it turned out great. I wouldn't want to do this for the whole trip, but our room was only $58 and very cute and comfortable! Jamison is keeping track of our spending in an app, and so far our food spending has been pretty high! We are trying to figure out ways to lower our eating out costs, so trying to share meals and definitely not wasting any food. We had some extra leftovers yesterday that we just couldn't eat, so we gave them to a homeless man with a dog. Ashland is so pretty right now with fall colors. It is a small town of only 20,000 people, but with a beautiful downtown, tons of hiking and some vegan options. A local told us they have a terrible summer smoke problem just like pretty much everywhere lately though. This first pic was a mural of Guanajuato, Mexico, which is interestingly one of the places we plan to visit in Mexico!!