A Couple of Observations and Emeril Lagasse

While in Virginia I had the opportunity to do a bit of driving around. Wayne took a cab to the metro and rode that into work so I could have the truck. It was interesting to say the least! As I mentioned before the traffic is amazing. On I-66, an east west corridor in and out of D.C. you can actually drive on the shoulders during peak traffic hours. Every 1/4 mile or so there is a light with either a red X or a green arrow over the shoulder of the interstate. First time driving to our hotel it was dark and the X's were all lit up on our drive out. Carson asked after every single one what does that X mean. We were patient in answering the first 7659 times he asked. Then it just became a game with him to ask us. People actually drove on the shoulders quite often, and Carson would always say that they were being bad.. and the police man was going to get them. Anyway on Monday, I had the truck and sort of got over my extreme fear of driving in heavy traffic. So Carson and I headed out to find the metro station where we would be picking up Wayne later that day, and do a little familiarizing with the layout etc. of the area. Imagine Carson's surprise when the green arrows were lit up, and people were driving on the shoulder. He piped right up saying that it was ok now because of the arrow.

Convenience stores are very few and far between. We literally drove for about 20 minutes looking for one to get some gas. Here we have them on practically every corner, and several different companies. Out there I counted four, yes four 7-11's that I noticed. I did notice several huge gas depot type places, but they were just fueling stops. Forget about going in to buy a ice tea.... NOBODY had brewed iced tea. Well McDonalds did...but they only have Splenda... and I am a sweet n low kinda gal with tea. I literally live on iced tea, and I am going to have to take mine from home wherever I go. Here, you can't swing a cat without hitting a Super WalMart. In the D.C. area , I never saw one. They had WalMarts... but they were the smaller older type of stores. They did have Super Targets... that I absolutely loved!

Another observation on food prices... some of the things I noticed while quickly walking through Target, is that the food prices seemed to be right along what we are paying if not cheaper! This is a good thing! I noticed things like Capri Sun juice drinks, here at Walmart they are $2.50 up almost a dollar from last summer. In Virginia at Target, they were $1.72. Of course things like seafood is way cheaper, even at restaurants... but again right on the coast, most is fresh.

Now for the eye opener... Carson and I were looking for someplace where we could get a salad at a good salad bar for lunch. There was a grocer called Whole Foods right by the hotel so we went there. We walk in the front door and there is a gentleman handing out slips of paper. He told us that there was a T.V. crew in the store filming for a episode of a new show that Emeril Lagasse is doing for the Food Network. First thing he told us was to look natural, act casual... and DO NOT STARE at the camers. Ha! Like I am going anywhere near where someone is filming for a T.V. show. They were filming in produce, and guess where the salad bar is... you got it produce. Carson is not always fun in the grocery store, and today was no exception. We get to the salad bar, and I see no prices for anything.. but I am thinking its probably 5-6 bucks a pound. So I get my salad. Get Carson a fresh fruit cup, and a small salad, and we get ready to leave. Now I must mention that there were all sorts of strange items on the salad bars... there were three huge bars and a lot of it was labled as vegan, most was unrecognizable. Now back to check out. Remember I only had three items... and my total was $19.87!!!! I should have known when I walked through some of the back isles trying to avoid the cameras... and saw absolutely nothing recognizable as our normal grocery fare. Everything was organic, everything was labeled as vegan or vegetarian etc. They did not have sodas that I saw, but this was the fanciest grocery store I have ever seen. By the way the salad bar was 9.89 a pound I had a little under a pound, Carson's was about a 1/4 pound and the fruit cup was $5.99.

I really would love to go organic, as in no preservatives, chemicals etc. especially since we are restricting certain dyes from Carson's diet. But I don't know if I could afford it. By the way, we never saw Emerill, the checkout gal said he filmed most of his stuff earlier. The crew was just getting background footage.