This page may contain affiliate links. As an Amazon Affiliate, I earn on qualifying purchases. Please see our disclaimer for more information.
Whew. What a busy summer this has been! We went on our fabulous road/camping trip for my daughter’s college graduation and after we returned I went to a full time temp job. Working there full time plus still doing my part time bookkeeping job (from home) and my home based business has been a challenge. I hate to even tell you how much our food budget and eating plans have suffered.
Last winter when I did temp work, we seemed to do fairly good on our meals still having real/whole/traditional foods. This time, not so much. I think part of it is the heat of summer and the rest is the fact that last winter I didn’t have the home based business just the bookkeeping job. The biggest thing lacking from our real foods diet has been our standby sourdough bread. I’ve been buying sprouted bread from the new food store in town or just picking out a HFCS free regular bread at the grocery. We’ve also been eating out at least once per week and occasionally twice. There have been several times my tummy has been a mess this summer. I’ll be finished working on August 19. And while I do enjoy the work, I’m very much looking forward to being back home and getting our meals back on track. I’m also planning on giving the house a good cleaning since that has slacked considerably over the summer too 🙂
What has been working for us in the food department has been super quick and easy meals. Stir fry style dishes have been great. Grain salads have been wonderful. Breakfast for dinner happens regularly. My crock pot(s) continue to be my very good friends. And I’m not at all opposed to letting other family members cook. Joe has been making dinner on Sunday evenings fairly regular. We usually have venison or antelope chicken fry which we all love. A few times Lulu has even called me up at work and asked if she could cook dinner. I’m very happy to agree to that!
I have a few pictures to share from our trip. We had a terrific time and are already planning another road/camping trip for next summer. We love to camp and we love to travel so we’re going to take advantage of that as much as we can.
This was the main event for our trip. My daughter’s college graduation. It was held outside and being June in Oregon we expected rain. However, we had a beautiful sunshine day and a couple of us came away slightly red.
The day after the graduation we camped at the beach. We did get the expected rain there. It started raining about 10 miles from the campground and continued through the next day. We still went to the beach in the drizzle. Christopher didn’t think much of the ocean. The waves were loud and wet and not for him. I don’t think he ever got any closer to the water then he is in the above picture. He did like playing in the sand though and was quite sandy many times.
After leaving the beach we drove to Bend, Oregon. We got there early in the day and were able to visit the High Desert Museum. We spent several hours there and had a terrific time. It was great for all ages. The picture above is Thomas, the River Otter. He lives at the museum.
Our next stop was a terrific camp ground near the Idaho border. Lake Owyhee state parkis right on a 53 mile long lake. We thought that it was just 20 miles outside of the nearest town. However, it is 22 miles to the sign to the lake and another 23 miles to the actual campground. The last 5 miles was on a road about the equivalent of a goat trail and very steep. We were quite happy when we finally got there. Our lodging that night was in a tepee which was quite fun. We’d love to return to that lake when we have some time to stay and fish. Beautiful place!
Our last stop was a mom and pop style campground outside of Lava Hot Springs, Idaho. It was very nice and at only $15 per night super reasonable. We put up our tent and were quite happy to even find power. The spaces were huge with the other campers being at least 100 yards away. The campground has a couple of fishing ponds. Christopher caught his first fish. He loved it.
We ended up leaving mid afternoon on Saturday. After being gone so long and only being 8 hours from home and the threat of rain, we decided our beds sounded pretty good. The drive home was beautiful. This picture was taken on June 18 between Jackson, Wyoming and Dubois, Wyoming. We were surprised at the amount of snow still on the ground. I think the temperature was 37 driving through this area.
