Vacation slideshow

It has been almost a month since I've been on vacation. How time flies. There are a few pictures that I really wanted to share, and really only took to put on the blog, so in true Patty and Selma style, let's rip off a quick vacation slide show...



The vacation was pretty food-centric, which sounds good until you are bursting at the seems. This is the Dairy Queen in Medford that kind of kicked off the week. Notice how happy we are eating our ice cream If we only knew what piggies we would become...



One of the more interesting thing was with different trade laws in Canada, we saw a lot of things they are available back home. Here's Hannah with a dragonfruit. You've all probably had the juice, but have you seen or cut into one of these things. Interestingly enough, the fruit is rather bland. So think about that the next time you spend $3 on dragonfruit ginseng natural organic tea.



Just as exciting, the chinese market we went to sold live sharks! I don't know how one would prepared these for dinner, but I would certainly look into attaching freaking lasers to their heads.



On a related note, walking around in Chinatown in Vancouver, there were tons of stores selling all sorts of dried goods. Dried shrimps, dried scallops, dried oysters....oh, and even...



...dried lizard on a stick. This is the 'money shot', so to speak, of the post. I don't have one idea what you do with that. Make soup? Dip it in chocolate? Leave a recipe in the comments if you can help me out. (not that i bought any, of course. Imagine how many more hours it would take me to cross the border if I had to sneak one of those things by the border guards)



The only cup of coffee I drank in Seattle. On top of the Space Needles good, but the low quantity bad. I'm usually pretty good at adapting to local customs (I spoke a lot more chinese while we were in Richmond, BC., where there are more asian malls than probably 45 states), but by the time I got around to buckling down and going for some coffee tasting, I ended up wandering the suburbs of Seattle on a Sunday night with no coffee. I did, however, find...



I just thought it was funny. Would I eat there? Ye-ah!



And finally, a quick thank you to one of my favorite Canadians Nicole (ranking up there with Ryan Reynolds, Michael J Fox, and maybe even Bullwinkle) for the tip of having lunch at Burgerville in Oregon. Two days after she left me a note to check it out, on the way home from eating entirely too much crap, we pulled off the freeway for lunch about 10 miles outside of Portland and found a recently opened Burgerville. It's a pretty cool place. The most eco-socio-conscious fast food place I have ever seen. All food is locally produced (well, the Northwest, Oregon beef, Walla Walla onions, etc), recycles practically everything, compost bin at all restaurants. Oh, the food is very good as well. I would show you, but I ate it WAY before the camera even made an appearance. The girls are happy to show off the balloons they gave them though.

Ok that's it. Vacation is long over. School is starting. Indian summer kicks in with a few more 95 degree days before fall rolls in. Maybe we'll start saving to go back to Vancouver when the Winter Olympics roll around in 2010. Next time though, better pacing on the eating, and less touring of the world's Chinatowns.....