Washington - Vitamix vs. Blendtec

My dad paid for us to fly out to visit him in Washington. The cheapest flight we could find flew out of Atlanta, so we drove down to spend the night with Katie (Hey Brian watcha doin') and Jimmy. I packed my usual list of tubefeeding items: the Vitamix base, Vitamix pitcher, a two cup measuring cup, two different syringe holders that I use depending on the thickness of the table I'm eating at, extra syringes and plungers, two towels because the only time I make a mess is when I forget to use a towel, my meds, and a few cans of Ensure for when I'm on the plane or in the airport and can't use the blender.

We made the drive down to Katie's house, and I ordered a meal-to-go from Panera Bread (it's fun to order off their hidden menu; if you don't know what I'm talking about, look it up on their website: http://mypanera.panerabread.com/articlestips/article/access-into-paneras-hidden-menu/). I put my chicken with hummus salad in the blender and heard the satisfying roar as my food was liquified into the evening's dinner. 

Then, uh oh, all my food is leaking out of the bottom of the pitcher and onto Katie's counter. 

Of course this happens on the first night of our trip. We're at the beginning of an 8-day vacation, already three hours drive from my back-up blender in Knoxville. It's 7:00 PM but Betsy is contemplating driving to Knoxville to get my extra blender, meaning she wouldn't get to sleep until one or two in the morning. 

But there's another option. Because of my mom, we're members of Costco and most of their stores carry either a Vitamix or a Blendtec at a reduced price. We decided we could buy one of the blenders, use it while I'm in Washington, then return it to Costco on our way home using their excellent return policy. It's like I'm borrowing a brand new blender for a week. I've always had loyalty to the Vitamix because it was the blender I started out with and they have a fantastic warranty with awesome customer service. However, the Blendtec is $100 cheaper at Costco, and I've heard nothing but good things about it from online tubefeeding forums. So, we figure what the hell, and drive over to Costco just before it closes to get a shiny new Blendtec. Once we have it at Katie's house, I left the instuctional DVD and recipe book wrapped up and just packed the blender for the trip. Already, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that the Blendtec doesn't take up as much room in my suitcase as the Vitamix did. Without even testing out the new blender, we went to bed, arose early the following day and boarded a plane for Portland. Traveling across the country with an untested blender and no instruction manual? I'm livin' on the edge!!!

At the Atlanta Airport, we took advantage of TSA's wounded warrior program where they escort disabled veterans to their gate. This has been a HUGE help to us. I always bring a few Ensures on the flight so it's nice to have a TSA representative get my formula and my suction machine through security with minimum fuss. Plus, they always help Betsy lug our carry-on baggage around. The flight to Portland was non-stop, so we didn't have to worry about luggage getting lost or trying to catch a connecting flight. The flight over was a pleasant experience in general.

"Long plane rides are AWESOME!!!"

We landed in Portland in the early afternoon. I had a craving for seafood, and the closest place we could find was the Portland Seafood Company. I brought in the new Blendtec and ordered the crab-stuffed Steelhead trout. The kitchen had no problem blending it up; the blend was nice and smooth and made it through my tube without incident. So, the first use of the Blendtec was a success!

Great place to eat with, or without, a blender

That's actually not water; it's vodka

From Portlnd, we drove a couple hours north to the booming metropolis of Winlock, Washington, where my dad has a 42 acre farm. When I say "booming metropolis" I mean a town with no stop lights where the biggest traffic jam occured when we hooked dad's horse up to a wagon and drove it to the only diner for miles around. What I'm trying to say is, my dad's pretty isolated. Yet he's doing what he loves to do. He keeps dogs, barn cats, chickens, ducks sitting on turkey eggs, cows, a working horse, pigs, pack goats for hiking and meat goats for slaughter. He has retired from an executive job at a paper company to work from sunup to sundown on his farm. It wouldn't be my idea of a pleasant retirement, but he is happy with the life he has built in rural Washington. 

Not an uncommon mode of transportation in Winlock

We stayed at his farm for a week. My dad sees family visits as an opportunity for free labor, so we helped him collect 350 bales of hay to store for winter. 

Uncharacteristically blue skies in western Washington

Betsy earning her keep

A panoramic of 350 bales of hay in my dad's barn

This job was actually much better than our visit last year when we took part in banding my dad's young goats. As it turns out, "banding" does not mean tagging the goats so that they can be recognized by the loving, caring farmer through the years of their carefree life. Instead, "banding" is where you fasten a small band (like a rubber band? I didn't look too closely) around the male goats' testicles so they'll eventually fall off. We corralled the baby goats into a shed and Betsy and I had to ensure they didn't escape while my dad and his wife flipped each cute little fellow over to forcibly remove their manhood. After the first goat went through this (His screams echo in my mind to this day), the other goats firgured out that they weren't in there for any type of reward. They did everything in their power to get past Betsy and I. That day, I died a little inside every time I pushed a screaming goat toward his grim fate. This is the reality of farming.

Anyway, throughout the weekend, I used the Blentec blender in their kitchen. This blender is awesome! The Vitamix has a much more simplistic design. It has an On/Off switch, a switch to go from Variable to High, and a Dial to adjust the speed during Variable Mode. In some ways, I like the simplicity. I'm blending meals so I only use the High setting and I estimate how long to blend. With the Blendtec, there are push button controls for pre-programmed settings and a small LCD screen to tell you how long you've been blending and the status of the machine. At first, this seemed like much more than I needed from my blender. However, I got accustomed to putting the food in the pitcher, hitting the Soups/Syrups/Fondues button and letting the blender do all the work. With this pre-programmed setting, the blender would quickly ramp up to top speed and blend for 90 seconds, which was the perfect amount of time for my meals. The only issue I had with the blender was that the lowest setting is still pretty high. With the Vitamix, blending a meal at the highest setting creates quite a bit of air, both in the blend and as foam on top. I like to get rid of this air by running the blend at the lowest setting for a while. This makes it so I'm not putting too much volume in my stomach. However, the Blendtec's lowest speed was still pretty high, and I wasn't as successful getting the air out.

Putting the "borrowed" blender to work

Despite this, the Blendtec is every bit as good as the Vitamix--better in some ways. It is considerably cheaper with the same warranty and excellent customer service. Plus, it is smaller than the Vitamix and easier to carry in my suitcase for long trips. Honestly, if the only problem is that the low speed is a little too high, then it's a pretty damn good blender.

Hauling hay bales wasn't the only thing we had to do on the farm. We also got to visit another farm owned by a banker (because making a living off farming with no other source of income is hard to do these days) to look at some cows he was selling. In addition, we went to Mount St. Helens, which was definitely a highlight of the trip. I lived in Washington for four years when I was a kid and we moved there the week before the big eruption in 1980. I was only 5 years old, so I have few memories of what happened, but I do remember the ash falling and I remember having nightmares of our house being in the path of a river of lava and watching my mother get swallowed up in the inferno. I'm sure I wasn't the only kid who had bad dreams in Washington. It was a devastating disaster. St. Helens today is much more beautiful than the desolate wasteland I saw when we visited it in 1983, although there are still no trees growing around the mountain. We watched a video at the visitor's center that vividly brought back memories of the event. Hopefully Grace wasn't too traumatized.

Awesome day to view the volcano!

At the end of the week, we drove back to the Portland airport and we were assisted to our gate once again by TSA. This time, we had a layover in Chicago. I was a little worried because this was the first time traveling with the blender without a non-stop flight. I was afraid of our luggage getting lost, or not making the connecting flight because I move a little bit slower. But, we actually had a long layover with plenty of time to get on the flight to Knoxville. The luggage--with Blendtec unscathed--made the trip just fine. 

 

Mommy's in the background trying to act like she doesn't know us

When we got back to Atlanta, we returned the Blendtec to Costco and got a full refund so our scheme was a success!! I wrote to Blendtec after we got home, explained how I eat through a tube, how much I loved their blender, but that I was unable to afford one right now. In a week, a brand new blender showed up at my front door, donated by Blendtec!! What a great company!