farmers market and camping trip

I am having the perfect Saturday morning. I heart the famers market. I went alone this time because Michael's sleeping in. It was pretty hard getting up yet AGAIN at 7am on a Saturday, but so worth it. It excited me so very much that I needed to blog about it right away. While watching Project Runway (the one with drag queens, wooo!). And everyone's asleep but me. Mwahahaha... I love it. Ok, here's what I got.

peaches, cherry tomatoes, baby red potatoes

squash, zucchini, baby chinese eggplant, yellow tomatoes, watermelon, cabbage, corn, variety of peppers

All for $20. Yes, that's right. 20 freaking dollars. Don't be jealous. Obviously vegetables are underrated in WV, which is why they're SO expensive in the grocery stores and SO cheap straight from the farm. I think that makes sense... or is it 9am and I'm just rambling? Either way. Anyway, everyone was super nice this time, and I got to chat with a few of the vendors. By the time I got to those peppers (3/$1 for all colors wtf!) most were gone and I was talking about how I froze some last week and the lady gave me 2 extra for free because they had small bad spots. Woot! At the watermelon stand ($2 for a huge one) I had filled up my bag to the brim and she goes, 'You eat a lot of vegetables, don't you?' And I was like, 'I'm a vegetarian' (didn't feel like explaining vegan at the market this morning, sue me) And then she was all, 'Oh, that's wonderful! My daughter's a vegetarian and she's so healthy!' Smiles all around. I mean, it's good for them for me to be vegan, of course, since a huge part of my diet is exactly what they're trying to sell. Finally, no criticism.

The only problem I have with our market is that every single vendor has these giant stacks of plastic bags, and not even grocery store castoffs, but specially designed Old Central City Farmers Market bags or something silly like that. It generates a lot of waste. So I brought my own bag from my HFS. It got pretty damn heavy, but everyone I talked to there was talking about what a great idea it was (especially for someone like me who buys a crap ton of veggies). I still had to get 3 of the plastic bags (the baby eggplant was loose, and the peaches and cherry tomatoes were bought last and I ran out of room). Still, better than... 10 or more, since they dump everything at each place into its own frigging bag. Wasteful. Oh well, at least I'm doing my part. Maybe people will see me with my bag and start copycatting me.

Ok, well since I'm up, I might as well post about the camping trip before I totally forget what we even did while we were there.

this is a view of our campsite... yes we brought a metal folding chair. it sucked.

we set up our tent all by ourselves!

michael hates it when i take his picture like this oops!

So after we set up our tent and got organized, we went on a little hike, which was BEAUTIFUL, but of course, I forgot to take my camera with me. Oh well. Then, we needed a beer. But... you can't have alcohol on the campgrounds. So we had to be sneaky.

sneaky beer pouring

PBR out of a starbucks mug is so ironic

We decided to start eating watermelon FIRST instead of last, because we had a special dessert planned. This is a yellow watermelon (although it's also pink) from the farmers market last week.

1/4 yellow, 3/4 normal. lots of seeds.

We spit the seeds into the woods at the edge of our site in hopes that next year watermelons would grow there. Hey, don't laugh, I've witnessed this happening! When I was little, my family spit some watermelon seeds off our back deck and the next year, there were watermelons randomly growing there. And they were awesome! We're hoping they grow there on the edge, but no one sees them, so we can go back next year and have free, wild watermelon. It could happen.

Oh, and we saw a lot of deer. Michael was obsessed with getting a photo of one. Deer are kinda quick though, so this is the clearest one he got. Not bad really. It was funny because our site was right by the highway (yeah, this wasn't the...remotest campground, unfortunately) and we kept hearing the deer clipping their hooves on the guardrails as they crossed the road. I mean, you didn't really notice the road until a car went past, it was screened by some trees, but it was still pretty funny.

hello, deer friend.

We got our fire started. Which took a little time, but we were the only people there without starter fluid. Roughin it, yeaahhh. Anyway, we got it started, but literally all night long, Michael could NOT stop fucking with the fire, and he won't be mad that I'm saying this because it's totally TRUE. It became kind of a running joke that we decided we were the running joke of the campground. As in 'Look at those silly kids (we were the youngest couple there) trying to start a fire. They can't stop fucking with it. oooops, it's out again! Oh...there it goes, they have it now' Then 15 minutes later, 'Why can't they quit messing with their fire? They had it going fine, but now it's almost out again! Silly kids.'

firestarter

It was fine though, and funny, and eventually I just stopped commenting and let him play in the fire like he wanted. I mean, who cares. We ate, and were warm. That's all that matters. First we had some corn that we grilled, but we ate it really quick and I didn't photograph it. While they were cooking though, we got some sticks and sharpened them in order to grill hotdogs.

that's mine on the right. tough!

Mine was so tough, in fact, that Michael's paled in comparison. Look how wimpy!

he thought it was funny that it looked like i had a dick in my eye. hilarious. stupid stick.

Have you ever roasted a soy hotdog over a fire? It's pretty weird. They bubble. As in, huge air bubbles happen under the 'skin' of them and they look like they're covered in huge goiters. Ew! But tasty.

yes please and thank you

Our fancy dessert was supposed to be smores. We found some marshmallow ice cream topping at the local market that's vegan. The only problem is that it's more like... marshmallow flavored syrup. Therefore, it will not set up. So we wrapped graham crackers filled with the syrup and some chocolate in foil and put them on the fire. But it just burned the graham crackers. So no dessert for us. Oh well.

In the morning we woke up before most people in the campground, probably because they had full mattress sets and heat controlled tents or some silly shit and we slept on the hard ground with not enough blankets and froze. Also, we're both kinda... boney I guess (well, I'm not, but when I sleep on hard surfaces, it HURTS!) so yeah. Ouch. Up early! Breakfast was key.

I know posting about tofu scrambles is a little...done or something, but first of all, I don't care, and second of all, scramble over open fire is totally awesome and worth talking about. We made everything on the site with fresh peppers from the farmers market and some onions (I got to chop, wooo) and jalepenos and some fresh salsa. And it really didn't take that long, honestly. We also grilled some hotdog buns to eat with this, and had some lovely tea.

tofuuu scramble on an open fiiiiiiiiire (new christmas carol? yes!) [so rereading this, i just realized that i cannot read that without the tune in my head, so i don't know if you know what carol i'm talking about, but it's 'chestnuts roasting on an open fire' just in case]

and here it is on our plates. perfect warming meal after a long, cold night.

Afterwards, we were ready to go home. We didn't really have much to do there after breakfast and we were both beat, so we packed up our stuff and headed back. And napped. But all in all, it was a fun trip. Here's a photo of us before we left, just to show that we survived (mother nature and eachother, ha).

hot outdoorsy couple makes it through the night

I think we look damn good for sleeping in a tent and needing a shower.

And that's how a vegan does camping.