La Vida Fresca

I’m tagging along on Kevin’s business trip to Salt Lake City this week.  So, while he goes networking, I get to hang out and enjoy some downtime.

We got here last night (it wasn’t a bit colder here than at home — strange!) and this morning I did some flexibility training in the form of beginner yoga.  I used an audio file I got free from yogadownload.com (thanks to Kath at Kath Eats Real Food for blogging about it).  This is only the second time I’ve done yoga.  I’m not into all the spiritual/energy stuff but I do need to improve my flexibility.  The download I got is pretty easy and basic, however the lady’s voice weirds me out a little.

For the rest of my workout, I did some push-ups then raced up the stairs in the hotel (more like ran, walked to catch breath, ran again) then went for a nice brisk jog down the road in front of the hotel.  It’s hard to tell from the picture, but I ran past some interesting buildings and the scenery was nice.  The air was crisp (albeit unhealthy) and there was still snow on the ground from earlier.  Being from Florida, of course we hoped it would snow while we’re here, but the weather forecast has only promised the likelihood of rain for the next week :-(

The view from the glass door in the room over the street where I ran.

I also planned to use the hotel’s “fitness center,” which looked to be centered around a treadmill in the photo on their website earlier.  In the photo it seemed nice because the treadmill faced  a glass door that went outside.  When I got down there last night, there was a sign saying the fitness center moved to the floor below the lobby.  It ended up being an extremely plain  small room with light-colored walls (with not even a picture hanging on them).  The only two things in the room were a treadmill and an elliptical.  To top it off, when I went to open the door late this morning, it was locked!  I wasn’t missing out on anything though.

Post-workout swag Kevin brought back– a cherry pecan Balance bar:

I really don’t like Balance bars so I didn’t expect to like this one.  It was better than their chocolate or peanut butter types but still not that great.  It was okay — the dominant flavors to me were fig and cherry — but there was still that Balance bar taste to it.  In the product’s defense, I don’t get crazy over bars unless the name starts with something like Ghirardelli or Hershey.

Off to do some writing and take some pictures later!

We spent a lovely afternoon at Pass-a-Grille Beach, which is actually part of St. Pete Beach. It was warm and sunny, and there were quite a few people out. We had some snacks on the beach, did some work, and took a few photos.

More beach snacks …

Some photos of the beach:

The dark photo is one of my favorites from today. That pink building is the Don CeSar.

Me working …

We were famished after several hours on the beach, even though all we did was lay around and get up for some photos. The water was a little chilly, but it was hot outside so it would’ve been fine to swim. I was just feeling very lazy. We ended up at The Hurricane restaurant across from the beach. The food was OK. I was going to go light and get soup and salad but decided at the last minute to go with a burger. It was a good thing too because the food took forever and they kind of forgot to wait on us when we got there, so it was a long time before we ate and we were hungry. There were a few small mistakes with the order, and I didn’t eat the coleslaw that I ordered because it was warm. The mayo they brought out in a condiment cup didn’t look too fresh either, so I skipped it. The place had a fun atmosphere though and it was nice to just relax outside. The burgers were good, so overall it was a nice experience.

Here’re some photos of dinner: H20, burger, and evidence of the fight I had with the ketchup bottle (the ketchup won).

On our way back to where we parked, we stopped in an ice cream shop called Paradise Sweets. I got something called a Pass-accino (I think that was it), a drink of blended ice, espresso, milk, and choice of ice cream flavor. I got pralines and cream. It was pretty good!

We had a great day, and I’m sad to see the weekend come to an end!