Son Trek #2, part two

Part one is here.

Photo of the day--Mountains topped with rain clouds:

Food fun
~ Sweet
At the entrance, we're pleasantly surprised to see an announcement that the restaurant offers gluten-free wraps and gluten-free pasta.  And the waitress is happy to provide me with a substantial serving of rice instead of potatoes.  But the best comes last--when I joke with her that I'm snitching the chocolate chips from the end of my husband's cannoli because that's the only dessert I can eat, since I can't eat dairy either, she returns two minutes later with a bowl of chocolate chips "that haven't come into contact with anything."  The chocolate chips disappear in roughly the same two minutes.  :)  Not until later does it occur to me that the chips themselves probably contained milk (though not enough to bother my tummy, fortunately).  But I'm so tickled by the waitress's kindness that she gets a little extra on her tip for bringing me the chips.

~ Pecan pie can be made dairy-free
And I'm happy to say that this one was, so I ate all of the pie filling (and skipped the crust).  Yum!

~ "Necessity is the mother of invention"
The prospect of just sitting there watching my husband demolish a super-sized dessert that, in the good old days, we would have shared was so unappetizing that I asked the waitress for a couple of those little jelly packets that they serve with toast for breakfast and spread them on the gluten-free crackers that I always carry in my backpack.

Most of the time, I manage.  But I do have to choose restaurants carefully.  Good old Friendly's, famous for its (kosher) ice cream, is no longer a good option.  Pizza parlors are just plain off limits.  And we did have to walk out of one restaurant when I concluded there really wasn't anything on the menu that I could eat.  But, having had a breakfast consisting of an apple and two gluten-free crackers all spread with peanut butter for breakfast this morning because peanut butter was the only gluten-free thing at the hotel, I now figure that I'll probably manage to gain weight while on vacation anyway.  :)

Travel tips
~ For your health's sake, always eat a piece of fresh fruit at the hotel breakfast, because that may be the only fruit you'll eat all day.

~ As I always say, "Never miss an opportunity"--one never knows when one will have another chance to use the ladies' or men's room.  Another woman I ran into recently had an even better way of putting this--she called it "preventative maintenance."  :)

Tourist trips
We were hoping to enjoy a visit to a Native American tribal museum, but it turned out to be closed on Tuesdays.  Major bummer, dudes.  :(  But we give manage to take a nice long drive through a state park, though we were afraid to try hiking any of the trails because of the on-and-off drizzle and threat of thunderstorms.  Here's one of the lakes that we saw:

A view from the gift shop

(where we kept our wallets in our pockets)

Later, we drove through the countryside, where we saw some sights not usually seen in the New York City area.  Click on this photo to get the full picture.

For those keeping score at home, yes, it's true that I've been able to shoot all these shots because I haven't done any of the driving yet.  My husband, having owned a car many years ago, is a much more experienced and better driver than I, so he drove yesterday because we had a substantial distance to cover and today because of the rain.  Fortunately for both of us, he doesn't mind driving, but I'm hoping to pitch in tomorrow, so off to bed I go.