7/12

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Saturday, July 12

• 2 eggs over medium, one sausage, two pancakes w/ butter & maple syrup at IHOP
• two cups of coffee with one creamer and three sugars each
• Small-ish serving of nachos: ground beef, sweet peppers, refried beans, cheese, salsa, tortilla chips, tablespoon of sour cream
• handful of nacho cheese combos
• about 1 serving of steak nuggets (these things look gross, like dog food, but are amazingly delicious, and very low in fat, though scary high in sodium)
• gingerale
• ice tea

Yes, overall, not a good day calorie-wise. However, in my own defense, it was my youngest son's eighth birthday today, so we went to IHOP for breakfast and the boys stuffed themselves to the gills with chocolate chip pancakes loaded with whipped cream and strawberry syrup. I am rather ashamed to admit that I really didn't even look for a semi-healthy option the menu, but I woke up thinking about pancakes, which is one of my biggest weaknesses.

I am very vulnerable to cheating on breakfast items. I never crave anything sweet, like a donut, or danish, or even cereal. Give me some crispy bacon, a fried egg, hashbrowns with sausage gravy. Or eggs benedict, with a thick wedge of canadian bacon, floating in a pool of hollandaise sauce. Mmmm. I suppose I should wake up early and scramble myself one egg and make a slice of toast to overcome the breakfast cheating. I detest McDonald's food most times, but I'll tell you what, the egg mcmuffin is about my favorite thing for breakfast--they use an actual fried egg, instead of the powdered egg crap they use for the rest of the sandwiches.

Okay, okay, enough talk about food, already!

I live in Wasilla, Alaska, which is about an hour north of Anchorage, and I realized today that I didn't really know any of the hiking trails around here. I know many in Anchorage, but being able to utilize the trail systems in the Mat-Su will be great for days that I don't go into Anchorage. Thanks to my boyfriend, I know quite a few atv trails around this area, but I don't quite like the idea of hiking on trails that are used mostly for people to rip around on a 4-wheeler. So I did some research and found 5 different trails that prohibit motor vehicles that are relatively close to where I live.

1. Lake Lucille Trail System (1.6 miles)
2. Acantra Trail System (1.6 miles)
3. Mat-Su River Park (oddly, also 1.6 miles)
4. Morgan Horse Trail (2 miles)
5. Palmer Moose Creek (6.1 miles)

My goal is to hit all of these spots in the next five weeks. Really, I live in the most beautiful spot in the world. As Peggy Wayburn says in Adventuring Alaska, "Its mountain's dwarf the Alps; its fjords surpass Norway's; its large free-roaming mammals rival east Africa; [and] its glaciers outnumbered only by Greenland and Antarctica." I should be out in it, as I have all winter to work out in a gym.