We slept in today (not really sleeping in considering I stayed up till 2 am updating the blog) and went into the major metropolis of American Falls - population 4,000. Needless to say, there’s not much in the way of shopping. We went to the ALCO – which serves the podunk towns throughout this great land (it’s a mini version of WalMart – everything is cheap, and is, well, cheap). Voluntary unemployment says we’re all about cheap though, so it met our needs well enough. The grocery section was sad and while they did have milk, I wasn’t about to buy it (I will compromise on many things, but puss-laden non-organic milk is not one of them). We also needed to get some lunch meat, so we drove to “Ken’s Market” and did some shopping. I asked if there was any organic produce, the guy (I’m assuming Ken himself) said he’s tried to carry it several times, but it just doesn’t go over well around here. Shocking. I was able to find all natural bread, but had no such luck in the deli section so we headed to Pocatello where I was told we could pick up some organic groceries.
I did a little mapping on the Droid and found a co-op. Co-ops must mean something different around here. The owner said she had milk, eggs, and meats. There were exactly 3 bottles of milk in the fridge. Granted, the meats looked good, but we were shopping deli meats not whole fish, t-bones, or pork loins. She assured me that their other store, “The Butchers Block” sold organic deli meats and cheeses. We got directions, headed over and walked in to a tiny butcher’s shop. Bill asked about the organic meats. We were shown the hunks of meat in the deli case and told they were organic. “How much?” “$4.49 a pound.” “No, we’re looking for the organic meats.” “Those are organic.” “Do you mean all natural, or organic?” “I don’t know. The distributor I get them from says their organic”. HUH? UHHH... “Back home, it would cost about 11 bucks a pound for organic meat”. “I can charge you more”. “No, we’ll just take two pounds of the turkey breast”. At this point, I compromised. I knew full well this meat was not organic (or natural for that matter). I don’t care where in the country you are, you don’t pay $4.49 a pound for organic turkey breast. Ever. I’m pretty certain the chic we talked to and the dude at the butcher’s shop have no idea what organic is. This isn’t really surprising to me – I generally have to explain the difference between All Natural and Organic to a lot of people, which is totally fine - not everyone cares, but if you’re going to be in the grocer business, I would expect you to know the difference. If you do know the difference, I would expect you to advertise it. There wasn’t a single sign or wrapper on the meat indicating that it was meat, let alone that it was organic or all natural. I’m sure I’ll be consuming mass quantities of nitrites over the next few days but I wasn’t in the mood to try and find yet another grocery store, so, like I said, I compromised and bought the wretched turkey breast. At least it only cost us 8 bucks.
As we were leaving, Bill said I have turned him into such a snob. I asked him what he was talking about. He pointed out that Dude didn’t bother to wash his hands or put on gloves to slice our turkey, and he had been handling raw ground sausage when we got there. Great. Now I’ll not only be consuming nitrites, but bacteria too. Hmmm…maybe the cancer causing nitrites in the turkey breast will overpower the bacteria from the non-gloved raw sausage handling. I guess I’ll be testing that theory over the next few days. Joy.
Heading out of town, we came across the infamous…
HA HA HA HAHAHA!! We saw no evidence that Homer was stealing squishies.
After our organic grocery fail, we headed back to the campsite and took the dogs for a long walk.
We saw more birds...
...and a gorilla... ;P
Apparently, the walk was too long cuz the dogs were not happy campers. They were dragging themselves along and were no longer interested in checking for Pee-mail. The weather is strange here. The mornings and early afternoons are really nice, then around 4 or 5 pm, it gets really hot for a few hours (the sun seems really intense) and then by 9 pm, it gets chilly again. While hiking, we had one of our Camelbacks filled with water – and ran out before we got back. Bill and I drank little of it. The Boys were extremely thirsty. It sounds stupid, but I think it also has to do with our elevation. We’re at 4500 feet, and living close to sea level, it requires a bit of an adjustment. Or it could just be that they’re getting old. :) It should be interesting to see how we all fare when we get into some real elevation.
After the hike, we came back, fed the boys a big dinner, left them rack out in the camper and then Bill and I went for a moonlit stroll.
Not a great day, but a decent one. We are, after all on a kickin' vacation. A slightly boring day during vacation is still better than any day at work. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment