No More Bagels . . . Ever. . . Really!

I have decided that all my future vacation will be to resorts that are all-inclusive or to Thailand where the cost to eating is so minimal it's ridiculous. The reasoning behind this is to ensure that I never ever have to endure another 8 day trip of eating bagels for lunch everyday - every freaking day! (and sometimes even breakfast as well)

When AH and I married we both agreed that some huge lavish wedding was not our style. We went simple and very inexpensive, as far as weddings go, in order to save money for our honeymoon and setting up our "home". In my efforts to save $$$ I managed to work out a deal for our honeymoon by going to Alaska for two weeks with free first class upgrades on all our flights, free housing for the first week (both courtesy of my employer who gave us the flight upgrades and who owned a condo in Juneau) and a free upgrade on our rental car. You'd think with my all my frugality's I'd want to skimp on meals, however, I hate to eat the same thing day-in and day-out and I never eat leftovers.

I thought that AH would understand this after a trip to visit him in college where I discovered he could eat for less than $100 a month by eating the same exact thing each and every day using the cheapest ingredients known to man, which included a cheese like substance (for daily his homemade egg McMuffin) that wouldn't melt no matter how long you put it in the microwave. At the end of that eye opening trip I pulled AH aside and in my ever-so-gentle way gave him the lowdown on our future eating standards once we were married; I only buy real cheese, expensive cheese, Tillamook cheese and thus I don't skimp on food - period. The customary foods in our future household would rise many notches compared to what he ingested into his body over the previous scholastic years.

6 months later my eyes were opened yet again as we packed for our honeymoon and AH included a suitcase just for the food we would be bringing. I thought to myself (okay, I also said this out loud as well), "Who packs food to take on an airplane for their honeymoon when they are not even camping?" Apparently AH does. Trying not to be too shocked I went along with AH's plan, or what I thought was his plan, to save a few bucks on food since we would be traveling for two weeks and were staying in a condo for half of the trip.

At this point it is probably not necessary to say, but I will anyway, that I endured two weeks of eating bagels with the most putrid chicken spread known to man. To add variety we also dined on tortilla chips with cream cheese and salsa as well. The only reprieve from this menu selection were the four nights we stayed in Juneau and I cooked dinner at the condo (lunch was still bagels and chips), the one night we stayed at a B&B in Anchorage and one night in Homer that we ate out at a local grease pit. I have not been able to stomach "chicken spread" since.

Fast forward eight years when AH and I took our first "no kids" vacation together to Mexico. I booked us in a fabulous (yet thrifty) all-inclusive resort. It was a wonderful vacation filled with adventurous morning activities, leisurely afternoons by the pool and all the food we could eat (to which I didn't have to plan or prepare any of). I was in paradise - it was a fabulous vacation.

Move forward two more years, our 10th wedding anniversary. I planned for us a romantic kid free vacation to Maui. We stayed in quaint Kehei, across the street from the beach and within walking distance of a wide selection of fun restaurants. We spent our days going from beach to beach, snorkeling, hiking and exploring the beautiful island that is Maui. We survived the road to Hana, walked a narrow path through a truly amazing bamboo forest, stood at the bottom of a 400' waterfall, swam with turtles and manta rays, stood atop a 10,000' volcano, survived Makena's "Little Beach" on a Sunday evening (think naked drum circle - more than any person ever wants to see) and even picked up two hitch-hikers as part of our "laid back" island style. It was fantastic, amazing, gorgeous and truly an island paradise.

However (you knew this was coming), AH insisted on cutting food costs down to the bare minimum. I had to remind him of a discussion we had months ago where I said I would negotiate on breakfast (cereal was fine) but not lunch and dinner - this was our 10th Anniversary trip after all and I wanted a vacation from cooking. AH's man brain kicked when we arrived in Maui and he failed to remember our discussion and so I thought, "okay, I don't have to be completely stubborn, we can negotiate here." so we hit Costco as we left the airport picking up some lunch supplies: bagels, a GIANT bag of plain Ruffles potato chips, a box of cereal, milk, Guava juice (gross – it was too sweet and full of pulp/grit for me), granola bars, a box of snack-pack cookies and Nips(100 calorie baggies) and cream cheese.

I gave myself lots of self talk in preparation for the coming meals. "Okay, take a deep breath, you can do this. You don't have to eat out every meal of every day, bagels will be okay." WRONG! How quickly the traumatized mind remembers those experiences which have lain dormant for over 10 years. After the very first bagel my body knew that this wasn't a onetime deal, this would be 8 days of repetitiousness for 2 of the 3 meals per day. I literally felt my mind, throat and taste buds go into full reject mode as I stared down at that noon-time, dry as the Mojave Desert sandwich alternative.

I did do it. Daily I choked down one of my worst nightmares and I will say the only thing that kept me going was dreaming about dinner each night. Had I not had that I think I truly might have lost it on multiple occasions (luckily our dinners were so good it was worth the wait each day). As it was on our final full day my mind refused on all accounts to ingest any more, instead I opted not to eat "lunch" that day, choosing a couple of granola bars to tide me over until dinner.

In my husbands defense I will say he told me before we got married that he doesn't really value "food" and in his mind any food is fine. I thought he was nuts at the time (okay, I still do think he is nuts) but he really and truly will eat just about anything (and the leftovers too). In addition his financial restraint is important especially traveling when eating out can quickly cost more than the airfare and hotel combined. I appreciate all these qualities in him. However, I cannot do bagels every day ever again. . . period. We are going to have to work on a new meal plan for our next trip. I have some ideas: 1) budget more for food (have AH sign a contract prior to booking the tickets), 2) hire a personal chef to cook for us or 3) travel to Thailand where the average person can eat like a king on less than $5.00 per day and/or we can hire a personal chef to cook for us for less than $10.00 per day, food included.


Here's a photo AH took of me at Twin Falls along the road to Hana. I must say that at 36 I am mighty pleased with this image. (I'll post more images from my own camera soon.)