On the Road Again...

 By Crabby McSlacker

Are you ready for a blog post chock full of healthy travel tips, amusing anecdotes, surprising discoveries, inspiring advice, and breathtaking photos of scenery and wildlife?

Oops, sorry! You probably want to type a different URL up there in your search bar. Did you not realize this was Cranky Fitness?

As it happens, I've done some decent "on the road" posts before, both of the "holy crap look how pretty this is" variety, as well as the "here's how to exercise at gas stations even if people think you're a psycho" kind. But we've only got a brief layover on this, our eleven thousandth cross-country schlep, and there's laundry to do and email to catch up on and other miscellaneous shit to take care of while we're not rolling down the road at 75 miles an hour.

But for today, I do have at least a few hiking pictures and one Important Cross Country Road Trip Lesson Learned.

When Exercise Plans Go Awry: The Ball's in Your Court

By Crabby McSlacker

Hi y'all!

Yep, as you can tell by my accent, I'm still in Texas. Our place in Provincetown Massachusetts is still undergoing renovation.

And how's that going?

Since our move-in date is fast approaching, we were curious ourselves. So a few days ago some kind friends of ours stopped by the place to snap an encouraging picture for us and...

Um....

Still a little work to do, apparently.

Of course there are all sorts of tempting analogies I could draw between home remodeling and fitness. Because home improvement and self improvement projects have a lot in common, right? Both require patience, planning, determination, a long-term perspective, and copious amounts of alcohol.

Wait, there's something not quite right about that list. Something's on there that really shouldn't be. Ah yes, you're all ahead of me here: it's planning.

Screw planning. Whatever you plan for? Some other different shit is going to happen instead.

But this is a health and fitness blog, albeit an aging, whiny, slackerish, meandering, half-assed, bizarro version of a health and fitness blog. And if I don't put up a post soon? It's going to be a dead health and fitness blog with no readers at all. That would suck.

So how about a real life example of Coping When Best Laid Exercise Plans Go Awry?

A Walk in the Park

By Crabby McSlacker

Fear not, this is not gonna be a long post or another massive camera phone dump.  Just a couple brief thoughts vaguely related to health and fitness inspired by a walk in the park yesterday morning.

What Happens in Reno...

...Should probably stay in Reno.

But instead it gets blogged about, in excruciating detail! Though not today 'cause I'm in transit.

I sorta thought I'd do a bit more blog posting while on the road, but it didn't happen. Shocking, I know.

Thanks for your patience, all five of you regular readers... back soon!

--Crabby McSlacker

Have Phone, Will Travel

Happy Veterans' Day! We are all totally grateful and everything to any of you out there who have served, even though this post is not really about that.

Instead it's time for one of those "I've been on the road" camera-phone dumps, yay! (With perhaps a token nod towards health and fitness along the way).

But how about I skip the usual apology paragraph? We've already established I'm an unskilled photographer using sub-par equipment and this is just a meandering blog, not a slick fitness magazine.  Let's pretend it's all on purpose and it's "gritty" or "authentic" or something. Like back when they first started using weird angles and shaky handheld cameras in art films. The fact you couldn't make out what was happening very well was part of the atmosphere, right?

And speaking of gratuitous weird angles...  how about an awkward segue to the first part of our journey?

Bright Lights, Big City

[Times Square Photo: Francisco Diez]

It's funny, Times Square has to be one of my least favorite New York 'hoods, but I love the way this photo captures the sense of being in certain parts of New York City.

The energy! The ambition! The excitement! The cheerfully wasteful excess as bazillions of kilowatts are unleashed solely to promote mindless consumerism!

Though I'm sorry, if you are a certain age, this location may have tripped a few rusty switches in the memory banks. Massive apologies if I have subjected you to Eva Gabor and Eddie Albert debating country versus city living in one of the most annoying tv theme songs earworms ever. Or is it just me who can't see "Times Square" without hearing:

 "The Chores!"

 "The Stores!"

 "Fresh Air!"

 "Times Square!" ?

(Which then leads to the worst couplet of all:

 "You are my wife..."

   "Goodbye, city life!" 

...but we'll save that rant for another time).

Eva Gabor: Not Exactly a Feminist Icon

Anyway, so what does New York City have to do with health and fitness?

Pork Butts and Wise Brains: Healthy Eating on the Road!

Blog regulars (hi, all 3 of you!) are aware that I am just now getting back from a house swap adventure in Toronto. And I've been threatening to do a post this week with a Healthy Eating on the Road theme, featuring a bunch of murky camera-phone pictures from our trip.

Gosh, can you contain your excitement? But then, just when I was hunkering down to slop together a bunch of trip pictures and contemplate the horror that is my email inbox, suddenly a new twist!

(Gratuitous Toronto museum photo.)

Yep, Rick Hanson's Wise Brain Bulletin just came out yesterday!

This is always cause for celebration, because it's a great read, and it's free, and if you haven't done so already you should definitely follow the link and sign up. But it just happens that this WBB is special... because it starts off with an ebook excerpt written by a foul-mouthed Wellness Coach and Health Blogger we happen to know.

So, I'd like to say a special hello to any Wise Brains who recklessly clicked on a link and found themselves at the weirdness that is Cranky Fitness! Where exclamation points are apparently on sale or something!

(And hey, speaking of Rick Hanson and wise things generally: Rick's new book, Hardwiring Happiness, is coming out soon and it looks like it's going to be great.  Plus he's got another free online interview series with even more experts talking about this stuff. More on that below).

Anyway, on realizing there could be a curious new visitor or two to the blog, my first instinct was to scuttle the lazy vacation post and put up something clever and practical and scholarly instead.

But then it occurred to me I'd have to write something clever and practical and scholarly.

Whoops.

So, welcome, wise-brained people, to the Healthy Eating Post-Toronto Cameraphone Photo Dump!

Keeping Fit On the Road (Or Not): Crappy Travel Pictures Part I

Gosh, isn't it wonderful when a health blogger hits the road, and instead of sharing useful information they just slop a bunch of cameraphone pics into a blog post?

Um, well, ok, it's not wonderful, but that's what we got today. No one visits the blog over the weekend anyway, and there's a great guest post coming up next week.

Some of the photos do actually have something to do with health and fitness. But many are just gratuitous selfies and wifeys or are fascinating-to-no-one-but-me aspects of our campervan travel routine. Pretty much all of them highlight the fact I can't focus (literally or figuratively) to save my life.

So, care to join Crabby and The Lobster on Week One of our August Adventure?

Cheers!

Just beefin' up our Vitamin B consumption!

Road Trip Report and Les Mills Pump Giveaway Winner!

Yes, we have a giveaway winner! But just to be annoying, how about I announce who won the Les Mills Pump DVD giveaway  at the very very bottom of the post, after a bunch of tedious paragraphs about our road trip, the history and implications of our migratory habits, trip pictures, and other stuff you really didn't care to know?

Ahem.... WAKE UP!

There, that’s better. Now go grab a cup of coffee before you proceed to scroll right down to the bottom past all the miscellaneous rambling to see if you won the giveaway.

So it's true we haven't event started east yet, just north, but here are:

Four Road Trip Discoveries So Far:

1. The whole saying goodbye thing sucks.


Regular readers know that the Lobster (beloved spouse) and I have a freakish bicoastal lifestyle in which twice a year, we pack up a bunch of our crap and migrate to the opposite coast.

Sort of like this, but with more chocolate.

We both hail from the San Francisco Bay Area, which we love, but we also fell under the spell of Provincetown Massachusetts, which is an amazing place to live… for about six months of the year.

Not this six months.

Our love for Provincetown led us to sell our bay area house and spend half the year on the east coast. But saying goodbye to family and friends is hard! Each time, we'd leave half our hearts behind.  Though it makes for lousy song lyrics, don’t you think? “I left half my heart… in San Francisco.” Nope, doesn't have quite the same ring.

Then to further complicate things, we found ourselves seduced by Hillcrest, a cute little  neighborhood in San Diego that was more affordable than the bay area yet still driveable to see our families. After two winters in Hillcrest, we now have a found some great pals whom we will miss greatly until we return in the fall.

The bottom line (sheesh, willya get to the point, Crabby?): Our biannual migrations allow us to see people we care about whom we haven't seen in a while. Hooray! But alas, multiple “homes” means we have to say goodbye to people we’d rather kidnap and stash in the back of the van if we had enough valium and duct tape and any chance of getting away with it.

2. ButtAerobics!

I’ve blogged before on road trips about using rest stops as an opportunity for calisthenics, (which looks and feels even weirder than it sounds so I simply pretend I’m invisible), as well as taking along suspension trainers and improvising exercises on trails by lifting enormous boulders.

The downside? These methods all involve leaving the vehicle! What about all those hours speeding down the highway where stepping out the door at 70mph isn’t quite practical?

Introducing: ButtAerobics! Put on some bouncy music, and get your freak on while driving with chair wiggling and head bobbing and sporadic awkward fist-pumping. If you're the passenger person, you can add stretchy band exercises, knee lifts, and seat-reclined hip thrusters! (And please do this last one while passing bored truckers if you want to feel like a total asshole).

3. I am totally pathetic when it comes to blogging on the road.

The sad thing is that I've actually been trying! What did me in was that I started the book The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. (I had no choice after FOUR different people recommended it to me in the space of a month. Which would make sense if it were a hot new trendy best-seller, but the book came out way back in 1997 when poor Eckhart was probably writing by candle light with a quill pen.)

Anyway, my error was in trying to write a blog post with actual content while traveling.

Did I admit defeat? Yes ! But sadly, not soon enough. I spent countless hours composing, writing, adding, deleting, rewriting, abandoning, and starting over. And each time I'd end up with the textual equivalent of:

Photo: andidigress

And ironically, what was the title of the post that I spent so much time over-thinking that I became a babbling incoherent puddle of frustration incapable of stringing two words together? It was: "Is Thinking Bad?"

Sigh.

(Apparently, Eckhart thinks we should spend a whole hell of a lot less time thinking, live exclusively in the present and spend more quality time sitting on park benches feeling blissed out. It's a fascinating read but a STUPID IDIOTIC CRAPPY CHOICE for a blog post on the road.)

4. The Pacific Northwest Rocks!

True, we hit the timing just right: the weather was sunny and pleasant, yet it was pre-summer enough that everything was mellow and friendly and uncrowded and flowers were blooming everywhere and it was green and gorgeous.

Is Ashland Oregon not a totally adorable town? We didn't see any plays as it was just a lunch stop, but it had an awesome park on a river to stroll through, cute shops and restaurants, a food co-op with amazing healthy lunch offerings, and happy looking people of all ages running around looking intelligent and outdoorsy and creative and friendly. Or perhaps Ashland itself is secretly one big play with a utopian theme, and all those those cool townsfolk were just paid extras?  Either way, it was a great show and we felt like applauding at the end when we hit the road again.

The Lobster in The Nice Park In Ashland

 With the Name I of Course Can't Remember

And Silver Falls State park?

Holy Crap it was purdy!

And now let's rejoin the folks who skipped straight down to the bottom to reveal that...

The Les Mills Pump DVD workout set winner is...

Kim!

Congratulations, Kim, and please email crabby mcslacker at gmail dot com and let me know your mailing address by May 24th!

And thanks everyone for stopping by, wish y'all were here hanging with us!

So how is everyone doing?  Anyone else find their brain melts on road trips?  Any random thoughts about anything?

Vacation! And How Not To F--ck It Up. Hopefully.

Postcard found at: Mademoiselle B

So next week I'm heading off for a vacation to the Big Island of Hawaii with the Lobster and her up-for-anything 86-year old mother.

Whoopee!  There should be lots of opportunity for fun and adventure and relaxation. Hiking! Sight-seeing! Snorkeling! Snoozing! Boozing! Snacking! Reading! Frolicking!

And yet travel being what it is, there will also be plenty of chances for delays, stress, inconvenience, disappointment, compromises, and dumb-ass mistakes.

So, what's it gonna be...An exciting escapade? A tranquil retreat? Or a chance to get as crabby and petulant as a two-year old on an apple-juice-and-oreo high who missed her nap time?

(One of whom will no doubt be behind me on the flight, screaming and kicking the back of my seat, if history is any guide...)

 Yeah, flying sucks, kid. Deal with it.

Photo: wallcoo.net

Well, I may not have control over all the actual events that will transpire, but there are a few things I could keep in mind to make the "happy holiday" scenario a lot more likely.

And of course it's always fun to write an advice post on something you're about to do, so that whole tricky "practice what you preach" notion doesn't even have to enter into it!

So here are some hypothetical tips on How Not to F--ck up Your Vacation.

1. Pack for the Vacation You're Actually Going On


It's very easy to take a look at the pretty and adventurous people on the travel posters and figure you'll need to pack for a lot of dressy outfits for fancy restaurants, hiking boots for the 20 mile treks you're going to do, safari hats and snorkels and binoculars and mountain gear and... wait, did you forget to bring your favorite comfy pair of jeans and enough clean underwear? And where is that special kind of tea you love that would have spared you the stale cheapo hotel offering that tastes like old cigarettes?

Be realistic about what you like to do and have around. If your vacation suddenly transforms you into an entirely different person... that's what charge cards are for.

2. Anticipate Problems and Plan Ahead


Airport shuttles sometimes arrive late; favorite restaurants book up; people get sick; weather changes... leaving extra time, and having a few backup plans in mind can turn a total vacation-spoiling event into a "funny story" you will tell later when you can speak about it at cocktail parties without pulling out your hair or spewing obscenities.

3. But then Stop With the Freakin' Worrying


I've always been really, really talented at anticipating problems. In fact, the mere hint that something could conceivably go wrong (does that taxi driver have alcohol on his breath or is it just his cheap cologne?) can put me on the express train to imagined death and dismemberment faster than you can say "missed the scenic and uneventful drive from the airport."

But thanks to recent self-improvement efforts (which you will be hearing about later in tedious detail, don't worry) I'm actually getting much better about this! If you are a worrier, remind yourself:

• Go ahead and take sensible evasive action if you can avoid problems, but if you can't, worrying isn't going to help.
• Remind yourself of your incredibly crappy track record at predicting actual outcomes when worried. Don't keep going back to the ONE time you knew something bad was going to happen and it did, while conveniently ignoring the 97,312 times you knew something bad was going to happen and it didn't.
• Stop thinking so much about the future, and realize you're perfectly fine right now. Have a snack, give yourself a foot massage, ask your charming and  knowledgeable sweetie a question about something, watch people passing by and critique their outfits, or whatever you can do to enjoy the moment you're in now.
• Deep breaths. Literally, not just metaphorically.  Exhale for longer than you inhale, close your eyes (if you're not driving), give it a few minutes, and let your parasympathetic nervous system kick in and help you relax.  (And yes, some of these tips are thanks to my geek-crush Rick Hanson who is helping me rewire my brain).

4. Adjust Your Expectations

Two common unconscious vacation fantasies: Everything will be different than it is at home! And: Everything will be exactly the same as it is at home!


Neither of these two things will be true. If you are expecting that you will be 1000% happier than you are at home due to a different climate and some new activities to pursue, but don't take into account that you and your companions are all the same people with the same flaws and limitations, and that all people worldwide are capable of carelessness, rudeness, and orneriness, then you may be headed for disappointment. Your temperamental toddler is just as likely to have a code-red nuclear meltdown in Disneyland as he is in the grocery store, and your easily-distracted husband may still tune out half your conversation in an elegant French restaurant the same way he does at the local taco stand.

Also, if you have your own perfect and favorite routines... you may have to let go of them for a while.  Your carefully crafted workouts, healthy meals, comfy mattress, temperature and lighting preferences, expectations about noise, smells, traffic... well, some of these just ain't gonna happen the same way they do at home.

Does it really help you feel better to keep saying to yourself "what's wrong with these people, this shouldn't be this way?" Yet it's such an easy path to go down!  Concentrate instead on enjoying the novelty of fire alarms that go off at 2am, the unplanned experiments in Intermittent Fasting you get to conduct when hotel restaurants close way before their posted hours, and even the lively domestic drama you get to enjoy from the adjacent hotel room that makes reality tv totally unnecessary!

5. Get Flexible and ... yes, meet New People and try New Things

This is the happy flip side of not being able to go on autopilot straight to your favorite daily destinations.  What's different about where you are and how can you take advantage of it?  A little bit of courage may introduce you to fun new people from different cultures with a refreshing perspective, alternative forms of exercise, exotic regional cuisine, art, dances, and other hobbies and activities you'd never think of trying at home.  Then when you return, you may find that some of these have been there too, all along, in some form or another... but you never never thought to seek them out.  The old expression "travel is broadening" is not actually referring to all-you-can-eat buffets.

6. Allow Enough Chill Time


Are you the sort who gets ambitious and plans activities for every second of your holiday, then get home exhausted and need a vacation from your vacation?

Make sure you get some lovely little islands of time where there is Absolutely Nothing You Have to Do. And if you're traveling with others, no matter how companionable they are, make sure you don't have to feel "on" all the time. Get the hell away from everyone else and you may meet the most exotic person of all... the relaxed and happy "you" that you hardly ever get to hang out with.

So, wish me luck! I'll try to post photos or something. But there's no internet in our condo, so if there's a bit of silence over the next week or so, don't be like me and assume the plane must have gone down.

Anyone else have any vacation tips, horrid or wonderful experiences to relate, or thoughts about anything, relevant or not?

Note: Due to a recent onslaught of viagra spam, and my reluctance to use word verification, comments are now closed for this particular post.  But don't go away... most Cranky Fitness posts are still open for comments and they always make me happy! 

Happy Trails: Thoughts on Camping, Plus A Re-Giveaway!

 All Photos by the clever Lobster

You know those inspiring photo-bloggers like Hilary at The Smitten Image who go out into the world, capture beautiful moments, and string them together with graceful prose? Not only do you get to enjoy stunning images of nature, but there's usually some sort of subtle but powerful observation about hope, or resilience, or the transience of life or some other deep topic.

Here at Cranky Fitness, we're not so highbrow.

Having just come back from a camping trip, I've been scratching my head trying to come up with some justification to post pictures, and nothing Deep is coming to mind.  Somehow "hey, look at me out in the desert with the Lobster having a great time!" doesn't sound all that health-related, high-minded, or helpful.  Especially given that some of you may be facing sleet, snow, rain, and/or locusts and plague, and may not be in the mood for our antics in the desert.

But, well, theme, schmeme, I've got a few pics to put up! And heck, you may want to stick around anyway for the Healthy Snack Re-Giveaway. Just leave a comment below if you've got a U.S. mailing address and would like to win a cute T-Shirt and Snack Assortment from the Human Vending Machine folks.  Last weeks' winner didn't check back in in time to claim her prize, so I'll redraw from this weeks comments.

OK, so some random thoughts and pictures...

Things You Should Take With You To Go Camping:

Let's see, you definitely need a tent, some sleeping bags, backpacks, camp stove, water purifier, flashlights....

Hell no, you certainly don't! Not if you're spoiled and middle-aged. You just need this:

Fran the Van Returns!

And this:

The Lobster, Most Awesome Human Ever
And Expert at Doing All That Is Useful

As a younger person, I did plenty of the backpacking, hitchhiking, primitive camping thing.  And while I still think it's a great character-building experience, I've got all the character I need now, thank you very much!  Give me a bed, an indoor toilet, a tasty grilled steak (grassfed, organic, humanely raised, and shockingly expensive), a chilled bottle of champagne, and a cup of hot coffee in the morning that I don't have to rub two sticks together to produce.

Roughing It Is Overrated.

Things That Seem Like Bad Things Can Be Good Things:

So the above photo is cheating, because it's from a previous trip in which we encountered the dreaded news that the campground was full. However, like our detour to Bisbee, Arizona, the Full Campground sign that greeted us this time was really a blessing in disguise. We found out from the friendly folks at the visitors center that we could just park off-road until we needed hook-ups, and they sent us to a lovely spot with a nice view that was Free Free Free Free!

Being Out in Nature is Awesome Even if It's Not Your Favorite Kind of Nature.

Confession: neither of us are huge fans of your basic garden-variety desert landscape. We prefer mountains, coasts, forests, streams, or spectacular formations of red rocks like in Bryce, Zion, or Sedona.

But I know many of you totally dig the subtle beauty of a landscape not burdened with the distraction of lush green pretty things, or pretty much any color at all except for two minutes or so in spring when the wildflowers are out.

Well, Gray and Brown are Colors Too.  Sort Of.

Yet... we're here in San Diego, and there's a desert close by, and so we went.  And we had some really enjoyable hikes! We weren't quite quick enough with the camera, but we saw dozens of jack rabbits with big goofy ears, and we almost literally ran into some big horn sheep when we came around a corner and they were standing there staring at us.  Oddly enough, they had really big horns.

And there was flora as well as fauna!  Fortunately cactus are not as speedy as jack rabbits or big horn sheep so the Lobster managed to catch one or two.

Perhaps not the best place to take a seat.

Oh, and check this out: On our last night, The Lobster not only grilled us up our lovely steaks, she also managed to generate some smoke during the process that appears to be taking over the entire universe.  Are your eyes itching right now?  Sorry, but it was worth it for that delicious dinner!

Quick Quiz! Can you guess what this next series of 4 photos illustrates?

a.  Trailaerobic Functional Conditioning!  It's the next fitness craze I was going to announce that's going to make me a ton of money once I put out a DVD series.  It requires no equipment at all, just access to a handy desert rock-strewn trail.  And heck, so what if you live in, say, Anchorage or Saskatoon or Pittsburgh? What's a little airfare and RV rental when your fitness is at stake?! Operators are standing by.

b.  A Cautionary Tale: What happens when you wake up feeling insanely energetic, proceed to drink way too much coffee anyway, hit the trail, get amped up listening to your favorite dj's awesome mp3 podcast...yet need to stick close to a more sensible hiking partner due to mountain lion warnings?  You end up acting like a complete asshole on the trail and dancing around, skipping, improvising various workout moves, and hoping the mountain lions are too freaked out by your craziness to come snooping around.

c.  Crabby Has Been Trying Hard To Get Back In Shape And Is Vain And Superficial Enough to Want to Show Off a Little.  The supposed need for some trail-side workout pictures for a blog post... was it just a subconscious excuse to lift something on camera before my newly acquired muscle definition is gone again?  Following surgery and various injuries, I couldn't hit the gym for quite a long time. Then I started dealing with some post-menopausal weight gain. So I started working out harder and even began counting calories.  Lately it seems my efforts have finally started to pay off, and I'm feeling strangely fit, healthy, and energetic.  Life being what it is, it probably won't be long before something else derails me or I get lazy, so I wanted to get something on camera ASAP!

The answer?  All of the Above!

And now on to the Re-Giveaway:

If you've got a U.S. mailing address, just leave a comment on this post and I'll re-draw end of day Wednesday, January 25th.  And be sure to check back before the end of the day Sunday the 29th to claim your prize!


Anyone else got any thoughts on mini-vacations, hiking, camping, being superficial, healthy vending machine snacks, feeling energetic, or life in general?  It's all good!

Almost Back...

This is just a quick post with a few vacation pictures--I promise, actual health and fitness blogging will resume shortly!

As I'm starting to try to catch up with everything I've missed, I just wanted to chime in and add a brief "hell yes" to a couple of Jo's recent pro-exercise posts. (In case you missed them, one is about lifelines and the other is on kicking ass at IKEA.)

Because while Jo is a lot more hard-core in her workouts than I am (whereas I'm more hard-core when it comes to whining), I have to agree with her: staying in decent shape makes life a heck of a lot more enjoyable.

Yep, still using that strappy thing!

Anyway, perhaps our favorite stop on the road trip was Mount Zion National Park. It's just one of many amazing national parks we've visited in the area, and we keep swearing we'll make it back to the southwest more often.

The Lobster likes it too.

But to best experience glorious scenery, you gotta get off your ass and walk around in it! It's not the same peering out the windows from the shuttle bus, or visiting the 3-D giant screen theater version just outside the park.

Even Crabby can't help smiling when she goes hiking.

So on our last morning at Zion, anticipating a long day in the van, I headed out on what I thought was going to be a relatively flat trail for a run. But I hadn't checked it out very carefully; turns out it wasn't a flat trail after all but rather a slow steady climb, with increasingly impressive views along the way. (Note: for those who've been to Zion, this trail was of course NOT Angel's Landing; I am far too chicken-shit to attempt that one.)

In short: it was more a hiking trail, not so much a running trail, at least not for a slacker-runner like me. But I was listening to great music and feeling psyched about being in such a lovely setting. I felt like running, not walking. So I kept chugging up the hill and chugging up the hill and made it to the top and then partway down and back up again (it was not all that long) and it was AWESOME! I got to experience the sort of runner's high that had me grinning for the rest of the morning.

And I couldn't help but think how lucky I was to have the chance to do that. I felt grateful for every tedious workout I'd done in order to "stay in shape."

Not that I plan to stop complaining about how miserable working out can be sometimes--this is Cranky Fitness, after all. I just love to get those little reminders every now and then that an active lifestyle actually feels better, and all that effort is totally worth it.

Note: Sorry for the world's most boring blog post; we just got to the Bay Area and are starting to unpack and I can't seem to find the box in which I put my sense of humor. I swear I had one before we left...

Thanks, everyone, for hanging in there during my break! (Oh, and don't forget the Fall Giveaway Check-in deadline is tonight).

Hello from the Crab!

Yep, we're still on our cross country road trip, and we haven't been eaten by bears, struck by lightning, or abducted by aliens. Yet.

Actually, instead of heading for the Rocky Mountains today as we'd planned, we took a weather-related detour and are now holed up in a sad little town that smells of cow shit. On the plus side, cow-shit town has friendly people and features a convenient, if not scenic, RV park that has internet. We're waiting out a storm and are hoping for better hiking days ahead, if not in the Rockies then perhaps somewhere Southwesty. But heck, it's all an adventure, and we're well-supplied with pizza and salad and beer and we're having a grand ol' time.

It's weird not being on the internet for days and days at a time. On previous trips, I've been much better about staying connected when traveling cross country, but this time... not so much. Sorry! I hate missing out on what everyone's been up to, and I feel bad about putting up old rerun posts, but I know that soon enough I'll be settled again on the west coast and will have plenty of chance to get all caught up again.

Thanks so much for your great comments and your patience! And thanks again to my great cobloggers Gigi and Jo for keeping things going.

But anyway, since this is a health and fitness blog, here's some photographic evidence, however indistinct, that I've been attempting to get some on-the-road exercise:

Crabby on a Hike--
The World's Most Clueless Map Reader

Crabby Running--Before She Found Out
It Was Hunting Season and She Was Supposed
To Be Wearing a Bright Orange Vest to Avoid
Being Mistaken for a Deer and Shot Dead.
Hey Western Pa: WTF???

Crabby Using the TRX that You Could Win,
Just Ignore Her Saggy-Ass Form
And Pretend She's Doing it Right

The Lobster!
(This Is Just Proof That She's Still Here And
That Crabby Didn't Accidentally Lose Her In a Poker Game).

I miss everyone, thanks for continuing to stop by. Back soon!

It's Road Trip Time Again!

Photo: Wolfgang Staudt

Yep, the Lobster and I are heading off for a leisurely cross-country trip for the next few weeks, and internet access will be scarce and sporadic. But Cranky Fitness will still be open for business! Jo and Gigi will be bringing you great posts about health and fitness... or actually, about whatever the hell they want to write about, 'cause I left them the keys to the place. Plus I'll be putting up some tired old reruns classic posts that newer readers may have missed, and perhaps I'll be sending in some pictures or short posts from the road. Oh, and one more inducement to hang around...

The Cranky Fitness Big-Ass Fall Giveaway!

We've got a grand prize from TRX and lots of other great prizes as well. To enter, go over to the giveaway post on our product page... and it's worth reading the instructions because they're a bit different than our usual giveaways.

Time to Recharge

Photo: Don Solo

So I will totally miss all my blog friends, and will be checking with all your goings on (in lurker mode) when I can. But I'm looking forward to taking a break from posting for a few weeks. Do any of you folks who have blogs of your own (or other serious internet habits) find you sometimes need to unplug for a while?

The fact that I can't think of anything remotely funny, thoughtful, informative, or interesting to leave you with is probably a good sign it's time for me to skeedaddle. I'm hoping that some scenic fall hikes, a few entertaining novels, and even long-ass driving days spent mostly staring out the window will provide either some blogging inspiration, or the answer to the question "what do you want to be when you grow up?" 'Cause that's something I'm still a little unclear on.

Thank you so much for your patience, and I'll see you all in a few weeks!

Fall Colors, an Apology, and a Quick Health Reminder

Photo: harold.lloyd

So the Lobster and I are back from our brief New England Fall Foliage tour, and though we were too lazy to take pictures, we had a great time!

Er, well, most of the trip, anyway. Perhaps not the night when we'd settled down in our lovely campsite by the pretty pond, finished dinner, and were just preparing for a peaceful night's sleep in our trusty campervan when...

BEEP!!! BEEP!!! BEEP!!! BEEP!!!

Our propane alarm went off, warning us of a potential gas leak.

Did I mention this was a completely deserted campground inside a beautiful state park miles from anywhere that promised awesome hiking, and that it was already paid for and nonrefundable?

We carefully considered our options: we could mute the frantic bleating sound, assuming it was only a false alarm (albeit the first one ever in seven years). Of course there would be small chance we might asphyxiate in our sleep, but as far as accidental death goes... that's really not an unpleasant one, right?

Nighty Night, Sleep Tight!

(Photo: O Pish Posh)

Much better to go to sleep inhaling propane than be wide awake and meet up with a huge hungry grizzly bear, or fall off a cliff or something.

Warning: Hurts More Than Falling Asleep.

(Photo:fdecomite)

Plus, if we never woke up, then we wouldn't have to unpack and clean the van again on our return!

But on balance, we decided it was probably worth hauling our sleepy asses back out of the lovely forest and onto the highway in search of a motel. And instead of hiking the next morning, we'd attempt to find an RV repair shop, one of our perennial favorite road-trip amusement stops.

As it turned out, the reason no one else was in our pretty campground even though it was the height of fall colors? All the leaf-peeping tourists were crammed into every motel room within two hours of us. After numerous "No Vacancies" we finally found a room at "America's Best," which we later learned must be short for the less well-known "America's Best Shithole" motel chain.

To be fair, as far as shithole motel rooms went, it probably was one of the best bets out there. To summarize:

Downsides: grease, grime, cigarette-burned bedclothes, rusted metal fixtures, water-stained ceilings, odd unidentifiable smears on doors and walls, a tiny lumpy double bed, funky moldy/garbagey smells, tattered carpet and drapes, peeling wallpaper, banged-up furniture, cobwebs, missing coffee-maker, cracked mirrors, and a couple of curious houseflies.

Upsides: No gunfire, prostitutes, drug-dealers, drunken screaming neighbors, rodents, arachnids, vipers or cockroaches. Plus, the toilet, while grimy, actually flushed and the shower had hot water. And it was cheap!

The Happy Ending: Van got fixed the next morning, our hiking and touring resumed that afternoon, and we consoled ourselves over our temporary misfortune with a Special Road Trip Treat: cheeseburgers!

So Sorry!

Alert readers may notice a bit of blogging laziness lately, as I gear up for the Cranky Fitness Big-Ass Giveaway and Cross Country Road trip. I've been terrible about answering emails, commenting at my favorite blogs, and doing much in the way of extensive health and fitness research. Again, thank goodness for helpful co-bloggers! And I swear that once I get settled on the west coast I'll start doing researchy posts where I try to dig up and report on actual useful information. Or barring that, at least I'll scout around and find some soccer players in their underwear, Sarah Haskins videos, or cute Lolcats.

And now for the promised health reminder:

Summer's Over, How's Your Vitamin D?

Many people, especially those in northern latitudes, don't get nearly enough vitamin D during the winter. (And we don't mean northern latitudes like Fairbanks, we mean northern like Boston and San Francisco.) Consider supplementing with some D-3, or get a few minutes of early morning or late afternoon sunshine without sunscreen. Perhaps sometime this winter, Cranky Fitness will sponsor a clothing-optional blogathon for Vitamin D awareness!

Outside is Better, But Maybe the Window's Open?

(Photo: kindofindie)

So send in your pictures of yourself blogging naked in the winter sunshine and we'll... well, I'm not sure what we'll do, besides giggle, but it will be arguably good for your health and may boost our pageviews.

Or, a more practical idea: next time you have a physical, ask to have your Vitamin D blood levels tested. Sure, depending on your doctor you may end up feeling like a high-maintenance hypochondriac, but screw it, it's worth it to get a number and have some clue if you're deficient. Some folks do all the right things and still somehow end up low.

(Bonus: if you take the test and find out your blood levels are great, it's an awesome smug feeling!)

Wait, I Forgot, Why Do We Care About Vitamin D?

It's the new hip nutrient (acai berries are so last year), and it seems to be linked to lowering risk of all kinds of health problems. It appears Vitamin D lowers risk of cancer, heart disease, stroke, autoimmune diseases like M.S., diabetes, and Alzheimer's.

Thanks for your patience! Any thoughts on fall foliage, crappy motels, interrupted vacations, vitamin D, or nude blogging?