The Road is a Veritable Smorgasboard

Time for another slight detour with the blog to finish the story of my 1^st business trip in my journey of sickness.  The Chop House was THE BEST experience I had had at a restaurant EVER and that is saying a lot for me—to see what I mean check out my blog post http://athomeattorney.blogspot.com/2013/03/60-west-ontario.html where I tell all about my first trip there.

As far as the business aspect of the first trip there was a whole lot of tired driving until we reached our destination and I spent the next 4 days winging it and just doing a very good job at mimicking what I saw needed to get done.  I learned a lot about software, networks, and computers in general and realized I didn’t know anything or hadn’t seen anything yet!

I quickly learned how easy it is to go crazy on the road with food.  Since we traveled together Dustin wanted to make sure we went to dinner every night (instead of ordering room service).  I later realized that this is because as a traveler you rarely travel with somebody else (at least as an installer/trainer in the company I worked for).  This meant that you took advantage of every opportunity you could to eat with another person.

The whole week was meat meat meat.  Now obviously I probably didn’t need to eat the things I ate every meal I did but I was of the school that if it was free then you went with the most expensive items you could (at least at the place you were eating) and enjoyed them… this typically meant meat!  Chili’s, Red Lobster, Applebee’s, a few local steakhouses or Bars and Grills are examples of the places I ate every day.  I felt a lot like Templeton the rat at the fair in Charlotte’s Web when he’s singing about all the food he gets to eat and then goes crazy!

I do understand that you could eat healthy at these places but had a different idea then of what healthy was and quite frankly didn’t even care!  I would make sure that for our “Continental Breakfast” I would get all the bacon and eggs and sausage that I could stuff into my mouth and top it off with a HUGE glass of orange juice or milk or even a coke if the morning was feeling that way.  For lunch I would get the little lunch steak or the HUGE lunch hamburger and a large French fry.  I would get a big dish for dinner, and unless it was pasta I would get the biggest French fry I could—often times substituting the vegetable with French fries.

This was my week and this soon became my world.  Stopping wherever the mod struck for that day which at times meant I would be eating room service or another time I would be eating taco bell or another time it would be a toss up between a McDonald’s and a Red Lobster!  How crazy is that!  The biggest problem was this would continue when I would get home.  Traveling so often (sometimes every week for 8-12 weeks in a row) meant I didn’t keep any amount of food in my fridge at home, unless you count the Pillsbury cinnamon rolls you buy in the cans that make the ‘popping’ sound when you open them with that AWESOME cream cheese frosting.

This should have been a time when I ate the most healthy ever—I had most nights free and so could have been picky about what I ate at the restaurants or just picked some healthy stuff up at the local supermarket but I didn’t… I indulged like there was no tomorrow!  If gluttony truly is a sin then I was the worst kind of sinner.  The interesting thing was I didn’t put on an exorbitant amount of weight, at least when compared to what others put on when living this lifestyle, but I did put on weight and, as it became obvious more recently, my body was not getting the nutrition it should be getting… I was on a crash course to some pretty bad places health wise!

Anyway… before I go to far into other experiences I have to finish my first trip.  Dustin was impressed and I fooled somebody yet again… “Muaaah ahhh ahhh… I will get to keep this job for at least one more week” I told myself!  We did fly out of South Bend to get back to SLC.  Why South Bend and not Muskegon you might ask?  Well… airline fees are interesting animals and often times you can find tickets for half or one quarter of the price of other airports when you are flying somewhere… as long as you are fine with driving a little ways.  We did try to be pretty frugal in our travels (at least when it came to the airline tickets!).

I had now tasted the life and liked it… in fact I LOVED it and couldn’t wait for me.  I told every detail to my mom and dad who were soooo excited for more.  The week was long and I was tired, but it felt so good! and I bet I gained about 10 pounds just during that first week.