Bill and I got married on August 11, 2018!!! The wedding was on a ranch in Grand Lake, CO and it was everything we hoped it would be. Surrounded by nature, Colorado vibes, good food, amazing people.
The night before our wedding, we had a BBQ at the ranch! You can see the ceremony site in the background.
A little backstory: ​When I adopted my dog Price 9 years ago, I said "this dog is going to be in my wedding." A few years later I met Bill, and a few more years later Bill proposed (with Price obviously). We were ready to start planning a wedding. We always know the wedding would be in Colorado, as it's where I am from, where we met, and a place we love.
We now live around 2300 miles away on the seacoast of New Hampshire, but despite the distance there was still NO way I was getting married without the pups (we adopted Cricket last year), so we decided we would make it a family road trip! One of my amazing friends let us borrow her van, which we were able to fit a full-size bed into, along with our packed suitcases, wedding stuff, 2 coolers of food and drinks, and everything else we needed for the road, ourselves, the dogs, and the wedding.
Cricket was in lazy dog (land manatee) heaven sleeping on a bed for 36 hours straight!
​So, driving through middle America on an interstate, what does one eat!? Especially one who eats only plants, and wants to look and feel her best for her upcoming wedding day? If I didn't plan ahead, my options would have been severely limited to basically whatever you can find at a convenience store or gas station, or the occasional fast food spot.
On the day before we left, I took allllll the random ingredients out of our fridge and pantry, and turned it into food for the road. Below is a photo of my food prep that went into our cooler and across the country with us.
Completely emptied our fridge before we left for two weeks AND prepared healthy food for the road. Double win!
Meals: potato salad with greens, cauliflower fried rice, fresh corn salsa/salad, and pasta (a mixture of lentil pasta, rice pasta, and zoodles) with lentil bolognese sauce and a scoop of basil pesto.
I don't know what I was thinking, but this was WAYYY more food than we needed. We ended up arriving a lot faster than we thought - our stops were few and far between, and extremely quick. We wasted no time: pee, fill up water, let the dogs pee, let the dogs have water, grab a snack from cooler to eat in the van, fill up gas, and hit the road again.
​We switched off shifts driving every few hours, and usually the other person would crawl into the back of the van and nap (and cuddle with the dogs). We made it to Denver in record time! Since we had so much food left, we ended up eating it for several meals while staying in Denver with my parents. Even though I packed more than we needed for the drive, it still ended up saving us a lot of time and money to have our own food.
I will save this for it's own post, but we had the wedding catered by a Denver company (Orange Crunch) and they customized a menu for us that was fully vegan!!
The menu included: BBQ jackfruit nachos, watermelon caprese skewers, plantain egg rolls with chili dipping sauce, curried carrot soup, focaccia bread, roasted vegetables, ratatouille polenta, and portabella wellington.
We got all of our desserts from Make Believe Bakery (a Denver vegan bakery). We got a small cake for us (lemon with lemon curd filling and berries smeared into the icing), and three types of desserts for our guests: Scout cookies (like a samoa but vegan, GF, and way better), GF carrot cake cupcakes with cream cheese frosting, and chocolate cupcakes with mocha frosting.
*On the night of our wedding, after everyone else had gone to bed, Bill and I went and raided the kitchen. We made our own plate of BBQ jackfruit nachos using the ingredients the caterers had left behind. Soooo good!!
**People told us "you won't eat at your own wedding" but we made sure did! After the ceremony, the caterer almost immediately brought us a plate of hors d'oeuvres, then my new brother and sister in law brought us a plate after taking photos as well. At dinner, we grabbed the mic to say thank you to everyone, and then kickstarted the buffet line by getting our food first, which also gave us plenty of time to eat together while the guests got their food.
The day after the wedding, we went to Keystone for a few days while the pups went with my parents. We stayed in a condo we found on AirBnb, which was great because it meant that we had a kitchen. We love renting places with kitchens when we travel, so that we can buy and prepare at least some of our own food.
On the first night we arrived, we were so exhausted and hungry, and there happened to be an Extreme Pizza next door. I'd never eaten their pizza before, but they have a vegan menu which was really cool - although it really doesn't matter because we usually just get pizza with no cheese. We got our pizza takeout and enjoyed it while watching a movie on the pullout couch. Romantic honeymoon, right?! IT WAS PERFECT.
We had gone to the store and bought tofu, spinach, sourdough bread, avocado, and green chile. We also had some leftover black bean pico from the wedding caterer that we brought with us. Using these ingredients, we made tofu scrambles for breakfast which were easy and satisfying.
​We also used the same black bean pico to make taco salads along with BBQ jackfruit (also leftover from wedding), greens, hummus, and avocado. It was perfect with organic corn chips on the side.
On our second morning, we cooked bananas and put them on sourdough toast with peanut butter. The caramelized bananas were simply sliced lengthwise and browned on a skillet, which made this breakfast feel special (that, and it was our mini-moon of course)!
While we definitely loved the fact that we could cook in our condo, we also love exploring new restaurants. And visiting old ones - like Cheba Hut in Silverthorne! Cheba was a favorite of ours back in Greeley. Yes, it's a weed related sub shop.
We ordered the Silver Haze (veggies & hummus) and the Magic Mushoom (portabella) sans cheese, and enjoyed them while picnicking in a nearby park. This was right before we went adventuring on a RZR (like an ATV) in Vail. I'm filing this away into "BEST DAY EVER!"
On our third and final night of the mini-moon, we had dinner in Vail. Just a simple internet search of nearby restaurants led me to find out that Tavern on the Square has a separate vegan menu. Again, usually with some tweaks and adjustments, we can eat pretty much anywhere, but if a restaurant is going to make it easy for us (and show they care) then they've made our decision to dine with them easy too!
We had a fantastic dinner watching mountain bikers make their way down the trails, and I thoroughly enjoyed my rice bowl while Bill enjoyed his ramen.
*If looking for vegan or vegan-friendly places to eat while you travel, which is also a hack to just find healthy places even if you're not vegan, check out HappyCow website or mobile app.
We returned to my parents place in Denver one last time. We all went to a Red Rocks show together as a final celebration before we loaded up the van again for our return to New Hampshire.
​I would say that Vietnamese food is not your typical tailgating food, but it's OUR typical tailgating food! Nope, not the first time we were slurping up pho or a noodle bowl in a parking lot full of cars!
I just realized how much tofu I've had on the trip. More than usual, that's for sure!
If you've never been to a Red Rocks concert, put it on your bucket list now!
For the trip home, we had some uncooked veggie burgers leftover from the wedding-eve BBQ, so I grilled those and stored them in a container. We bought a head of romaine so that we could eat these burgers in a lettuce bun, along with some pickles and ketchup.
For snacks (which are crucial when driving for 2 days straight), we had apples, bananas, cherries, blueberries, pistachios, carrots & cucumber with hummus, organic kettle corn (guilty pleasure), and a few LARABARS.
We also had Suja green juice, kombucha, sparkling waters, coffee concentrate, and almond milk.
So, there ya have it! This is pretty much what we ate throughout the entire trip, minus a few meals, but specifically what we brought during our cross-country travels and to our AirBnb kitchen. We had a magical time, and figuring out the food aspect of the whole trip was fun and challenging, buuut also quite easy! It really doesn't take that much extra effort to eat well during travels, and I hope this gave you some ideas for your own travel or day-to-day snacks and meals!
Also - TONS of water. TONS.
I'm so inspired by you! It's on my bucket list to work with you on a fast: cleanse and also have you do the food for a party !!!!!
So great full for your blog!