Snowmass, Part 3

Sorry if you're tired of hearing about our trip to Snowmass, but I had a lot to share and I thought it might be easier to digest in three (relatively) shorter posts than one loooong post. So I wanted to devote this one to talking about how I ate. Most of our meals were provided for us in a large ballroom at the Westin Resort. They had two buffet lines, offering a great assortment of foods for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I just took my Blendtec pitcher through the line and dumped my food straight into it.

Everything is blurry in Colorado...or maybe I can't take a picture. This is part of the breakfast buffet.

In general, breakfasts were much better than lunches and dinners for eating gluten-free. They always had eggs, breakfast potatoes, and bacon/sausage. On a couple mornings, they even had omelet bars. For lunch, they often only had ham sandwiches wrapped in aluminum foil, a salad, and some type of soup. Not the greatest offerings for a gluten-free tubie. Dinner was hit or miss. I can't complain because my meals were paid for, although we had to pay quite a bit for Betsy and Grace to eat with me. The staff at the Westin were all awesome. I can't say enough good things about them.

Omelet bars are fabulous

After I got my meal, we found an outlet along the wall of the ballroom, close to our table. I plugged up the Blendtec and hit the "Soups/Syrups/Fondues" button. It was loud, but the din in the dining room was loud to begin with, so we didn't make a scene.

Doesn't my little Blendtec look lost and forlorn?

Blendtec's Wildside Jar TCB (Taking Care of Business - Seinfeld reference)

After eating, I brought my pitcher to one of the wait-staff, and they ran it through their dishwasher for me. They recognized me from last year, so they were used to catering to a tubie.

We ate most of our meals with friends who we first met at the sports clinic last year, Mike and Courtney. Mike is a blind veteran. He was an Army medic. After going blind, he got the military to pay for him to go to law school. He became a blind, Buddhist lawyer. Yes, you read that right. He's a blind, Buddhist lawyer. They should make a TV show or an awful movie starring Ben Affleck about that, right? 

Mike is a great guy, full of funny stories. He serves as a part-time judge in Arizona right now. He also does a lot of pro bono work. For instance, a gentleman asked Mike to represent him after he was sued by his landlord for "allegedly" mooning him. Mike's brilliant defense? The landlord didn't know for sure who had mooned him because he couldn't pick the offending hindquarters out in a lineup. The guy got off free of charge. 

Courtney always accompanies Mike on his trips. She is Mike's 12 year-old daughter and was really awesome about playing with Grace all week.

Mike is sitting on the far left. Courtney is in the middle, next to Grace, who is wearing a bright pink hat.

Here's a picture of Grace with Mike's seeing-eye dog, Dobson:

Dobson is old and nearing retirement. He was easily distracted by food

One of the really cool aspects of this trip is seeing all the amazing service dogs and hearing about all the ways they help veterans. We got some pictures of a few of them. Grace wanted to show some pictures at show-and-tell in her class so she wrote down the dogs' names. Here's Onyx: 

Onyx is a guide dog; purebred black lab

And this is Doc

Doc is a seizure dog

Introducing Albus:

Albus, "picks up stuff, takes off socks and gets [the owner's] wife"

And Mogul:

He turns on lights and wakes up his owner when he has nightmares

This is Koby:

Koby is an emotional therapy dog

Sorry about the poor quality of the picture, but this is Rocky:

According to his owner, Rocky, "does everything!"

One of the dogs even got out on the dance floor during the instructor appreciation dance:

Don't know this stud's name, but he had some moves

That was just a few of the dogs we met during the week. We even met a service dog at the Aspen airport on the way home. I thought, with the passage of the law legalizing marijuana in Colorado, it would be a smart move for them to have drug dogs at the airport to catch all the people bringing their legally purchased pot brownies home. However, this was just a dog to detect explosives. So, if you're thinking about bringing your wacky tobaccy home with you after your getaway in the Rockies, go for it!!!  (don't do that--you'll probably get caught--then you'll blame me)

His name is Qualls. Grace may have had explosives in her hair.

So, I was talking about eating before I got on the blind lawyer/service dog tangent. Here are just a few pictures of me eating in the Westin ballroom.

Tuesday breakfast

Tuesday lunch

Tuesday dinner. I should really try different expressions.

Wouldn't it be fun to squirt a syringe-full at other people? A new type of food fight!

Wednesday dinner I think?

Here I am with Jake.

Hi Jake

Jake was one of our team leaders last year on team Head Wall. He works at the VA office in Denver and he's been volunteering at this event for over a decade. His father, also a team leader, has been coming to the clinic even longer. Jake and Grace had a constant game all week trying to sneak up on, and scare, each other. Jake was much better at it.

I mentioned that lunches weren't all that great in the ballroom. On one such occassion, when I was a little pressed for time because I had to get out to the ski slopes, Real Food Blends came in really useful!! I mixed mine (Salmon meal) with a Carnation Instant Breakfast to boost up the calories and it turned out fantastic!

Real Food Blends selfie

On a couple occasions, they didn't offer meals in the dining room. Instead, they had Taste of Snowmass, where all the restaurants in Snowmass Village offered an entrée and desert--I think I talked about this in my first Snowmass post. In those cases, I brought my food back to the hotel room and blended it up there. This wasn't ideal because I always forget to bring dish soap on these trips, and I hate having to clean the Wildside jar and my syringes in the bathtub. But, I made it work.

Friday's blend...last day :-(

On the way home, I was worried about bringing a Real Food Blends meal through security because it's 8 ounces of liquid. They are usually ok with Ensures after I flash my tube and tell them I have no other way to eat. I didn't have the Real Food Blend in the box though. It was just the gray pouch. I think next time I'll try keeping the box out and taking it through. I'm really afraid they'll make me throw it away though! Anybody else get a Real Food Blend or Liquid Hope through security? Here I am in the Houston airport during our layover:

One of the few times we let Grace eat McDonald's. She was excited.

So ends another successful trip to Colorado. Some great memories and we are already counting down the days until the 2015 Winter Sports Clinic!!

The enormous Snowmass chair