8/26/2011

I survived the crater.

Surprisingly I was not woken up by my father on Thursday morning!  But I didn't sleep, I was up by 7:30 and starving.  Although there was coffee started no one was cooking anything for breakfast, I took this as my opportunity to cook for the group.  I decided I couldn't screw pancakes up too badly but I was wrong.  I must have gotten distracted when I was scooping the pancake mix and left out cup or two because the batter was SO runny, my pancakes were the size of the entire pan.  I decided to toss that batch and start fresh.  This time they were actually fluffy and round!  I set up a little station for everyone with fruit and syrup.
I made myself a quick plate with peaches, strawberries & bananas and it was pretty good (370 calories).  The cakes were a little dry but not bad for my first try and no one else complained!  
Our only real plan for the day was to go to the Homestead Crater but we were having trouble getting in touch with the reservation desk.  In the meantime we packed up our crater swimming gear and hit the outlets.
Carol had raved about the outlets when we talked about things to do and she had even sent me some coupons to use!  Joe was super excited about the trucks outside the visitor center and even hopped in after a father/son said he wouldn't fit.
We all decided to split up and meet back at the car two hours later.  Joe and I hit a bunch of stores including Ann Taylor, Bose, Lucky, Tommy Bahama, Coach, Crocs and Banana Republic.  I was super excited to get three pairs of Lucky jeans for $80!  I'm really just happy to have jeans that fit again, the size 10 Express pairs I have are too big in the waist but these size 8 pairs are perfect!  Now we just need to find a way to make it all fit into our suitcases!
I checked the weather on my tab when we were back in the car and noticed the funniest thing.  See the temperature is 87 but the heat index is 84!  That's crazy!  We're all used to it being like 87 with a heat index of 95.  Between the lovely weather (warm during the day, cool at night) and my hair (no frizz, lays nice with no blow drying or flat ironing needed) I could totally move to Utah. 
Anyway, we were all hungry after our shopping excursion and we had coupons to another of Chris & Carol's recommended restaurants so we headed over.
I'm usually not a huge fan of mexican food because of the heat.  I quickly texted Carol and asked her what was good, she suggested the enchiladas so I ordered the Bandero type (rotisserie chicken enchilada (green sauce), rotisserie chicken suiza enchilada (white sauce), and beef enchilada (red sauce), served with your choice of rice and beans) (493 calories).  It was pretty good!  I asked for double rice because I'm not a fan of beans, I also didn't eat the enchilada in green sauce because it was spicy but the other two were delicious.
We were finally able to make a reservation for the crater at 4pm so we made a pit stop at the house to drop off our purchases and leftovers before taking the half hour drive to the resort.  On our way there my sister asked what kind of animal something out the window was, she said they looked they were wearing coats and the might be armadillos.  I was really excited to see an armadillo so I asked Joe to turn the car around.  When we got back to the spot she had seen them we were surprised to see, sheep...  I was laughing so hard I couldn't breathe!  Seriously I was crying!  It might be one of those things where you had to be there but we're still laughing about it two days later.  We were practically at the crater when this all went down so we took a few minutes to compose ourselves then headed in.  It was $11 to float, swim or soak and a few me dollars to rent snorkeling gear.  We signed our waivers and were sent over to check out the top of the crater.
It wasn't all that exciting, it looks sort of like a beehive. 
At least we got some nice shots of the surrounding area from up high.
Once we finished up our photo session it was time to go in and get wet. 
 Now I'm not going to lie, it wasn't that great.  I mean it was an experience and now we can say we've gone swimming in a natural hot spring but I probably wouldn't go back.
 There wasn't much to see with the snorkeling gear and there wasn't really anything to do but float around.  I mean it was pretty cool to see the rock formation and think about how long it had been there but even the pictures didn't come out that great.  You can't really even make out the rocky background.
At least we got to play with the underwater camera some more. 







After our 40 minutes in the crater were up it was time to head home.  We had a dinner reservation at Chimayo at 8:15pm to celebrate my mom's birthday.
We were all ready a little early so we headed out to Main St to wander around a little while everything was still open.  I was hoping to pick up a Park City sweatshirt or something but they were all pretty over priced, shocking I know.  I may go back later on this week and pick up one I saw that was on sale though.  We did get one souvenir, an ornament for our xmas tree, a wooden bear that's finishing!  Not long thereafter it was time for our dinner reservation.  I started with a cherry pineapple margarita.  It was so yummy and all the muddled fruit at the bottom was delicious.
Joe and I followed Chris and Carol's recommendations.  For an appetizer we ordered the honey and chile roasted duck enchiladas (filled with red peppers and grilled onions,  served with a green chile-tomatillo sauce).  I was a little bummed that we only received one enchilada but that's the way with fancy restaurants.  At least it was yummy.
For my entree I ordered kobe beef with papas fritas especial (brushed with a tres chiles and negro modelo beer demi glace, served with creamy spinach tarta).  And Shana did ask what papas fritas are, we reminded her they're french fries, those years of spanish class really paid off.  But back to the food, the sauce was very strong but overall tasty.  Next time I would probably go with the spare ribs.  I tried to take a picture of my sister's order but it was just too dark.
I will say that what the food lacked the staff made up for in customer service.  They were extremely nice and welcoming from the minute we walked in the door.  There was a large party that came in just before us so our food took a little while to come out.  We barely noticed the wait though and never complained so we were surprised when the host brought out a fondue dessert for us on the house as thanks for our patience!
We also asked the host to take a group picture of us and he suggested we go out front because the scenery is better.  I mean he was probably the nicest restaurant employee I've ever encountered. 
We headed back to the house after dinner as most of the shops were closed since it was after 9.  I hung out in the living room for a while reading blogs and uploading pictures.  I've been trying to upload to Facebook each day so that I'm not overwhelmed trying to sort out the entire trip when we get home. 
1. 15 Spend Free Days:  10 days total. 


2. Breakfast: 370 calories + Lunch: 493 calories + Dinner: 901 calories + Snacks: 0 calories = 2290 burned - 1764 eaten = -526 total burned, 12 days total.
3. Complete 1250 fitness minutes: 491 total.
4. Walk at least 10,000 steps for 25 days:  12128 steps.  21 days total. 
5. At least 20 days with 30 minutes of house work:  9 days total.

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