But I'm on vacation, so the calories don't count...right?

I think one of the hardest things about going on vacation is the food. When you're at home in your normal routine, making the right (or at least better) food choices is much easier than when you are on vacation. On vacation you are surrounded by new foods and restaurants that you don't have at home, which makes you want to try all the things you wouldn't normally eat. When faced with a burger with cream cheese, jalapeños and bacon (don't judge just try it, it will change your life!) vs. a plain grilled chicken sandwich while on vacation, guess which one I'm choosing?

And yes, I ate most of the other plate too =/

Right now, Bexar and I are in Colorado for a week long vacation and I'm finding it very hard to make the right or even semi-better choices. I started off our road trip at Denny's with a stack of chocolate chip (both white and regular chocolate) pancakes topped with hot fudge and peanut butter. Seriously, whoever thought that one up deserves a freakin medal because I'm pretty certain that there were some unicorn tears mixed in there somewhere. Of course, we were meeting up with a friend of mine who also did World's Toughest Mudder and the San Antonio GORUCK with me and who also eats super healthy. So while I'm gorging myself on magical deliciousness, he's eating whole wheat pancakes and turkey bacon. I felt properly shamed for about 45 seconds when our plates arrived until I ate my first bite then all shame went out the window.

I had packed a good amount of snacks to try and prevent us from stopping at fast food places while on the road and I'm proud to say that actually worked. Katy:1, tempting bad food: 0. When we finally arrived in Denver it was raining like crazy. We had originally planned to eat at a restaurant called the Cherry Cricket on our first night but we were both too tired to try and navigate Denver in a torrential downpour so we just hit the Irish pub in the hotel. Luckily I was too exhausted to eat anything big so I just order a cup of soup and a side of chips of which I ate about 5.

Our hotel is located right on the famous 16th Street Mall in downtown Denver and so for breakfast we just wandered down the promenade until we found a little bakery we wanted to eat at. Now, while I should have ordered the oatmeal with fruit, I instead got a croissant with eggs, cheese and bacon. That one I actually felt guilty about because it didn't even taste that great. Our lunch that day consisted of a ProBar which was actually pretty filling. It held us over until dinner, which was our long awaited trip to the Cherry Cricket. Let me give you a little back story about this place. 2 years ago, before our first trip to Colorado, it was featured on Man vs. Food and it looked really interesting so we made sure to eat there on our way up to Fort Collins. It was a life changing experience. I ordered the Little Cricket (1/4lb burger compared the Original Cricket at 1/2lb) topped with cream cheese, bacon and jalapeños. My friends, these are the things that dreams are made of. I made a picture of that burger as my

Super excited to be there

profile pic for a while on Facebook and have constantly tried to recreate it at home myself but it's never the same. So for 2 years I've dreamed of going back and eating that burger. However, this is the problem with having an amazing first experience anywhere-you've built it up so much in your mind that your next visit will invariably be disappointing, and this was no exception. The beautiful patio we got to sit on last time was closed, so we were stuck in an incredibly noisy back room with BLARING music so loud that we could barely hear each other.
The service was definitely lacking. The waiter was nice enough, but it took him almost 10 minutes to even make it to our table to take our drink orders. When our burgers finally came, my bottom bun was completely soggy and I could barely lift my burger. The cream cheese was the smallest square ever, not even covering half of the burger. It was still good, but not as good as I remembered. I may give them another chance before we leave but honestly, I don't need those calories or to spend that much money again just to be disappointed. Looks like I'll be making these myself again.

The next morning we went back to the same bakery and this time I chose a little better. I went in with the intentions of getting the oatmeal, but instead I got their panini with chicken apple sausage, eggs, on super thin bread with a side of fruit. It was actually really good.

From there, my choices have stayed slightly better, minus the hot fudge sundae with two scoops of ice cream ( Vanilla Malt Peanut Butter and their Funky Donkey: Oreo's, fudge swirl, unicorns and peanut butter ice cream, what what?!). In my defense, we had just finished a super intense 2 hour hike up Amphitheater Trail in Boulder and I was man-sized hungry.

Last night a friend I haven't seen in years took us to the Wynkoop Brewery and I had a buffalo burger for the first time ever. It was really good! It pretty much tastes the same as a regular burger but it's much leaner and better for you. Well, better that is until you go and add cheese and bacon. But what's a burger without cheese and bacon right??

And that's pretty much where we're at. It's Tuesday morning and we still have another 3 days here in Colorado, full of potentially good or not-so-good food choices. Hopefully my willpower will kick in and be a little stronger the last part of our trip.