Food Filled Weekend.

  I had been waiting for this event for over a month.  I follow a few people who live on the west coast and had gone to the LA VegFest.  They were posting a bunch of amazing pictures of vegan food that just looked amazing and so good.  I was so jealous and wanted to eat all of it.  I knew I would get my chance when a friend told me about DC VegFest.


  I tried so many samples and the food we did buy was really good.  It was overcast the whole time and was randomly a bit rainy, but it didn't stop me from having fun.
  The black bean burger was a bit sweet, and I can even get it from grocery stores.  I'm so excited to be able to have them at home.  Another really good thing we tried was a mango lassi.  I'm not sure what all went into it, but on top of the mango flavor, there was a strong flavor of cardamom.  All the others I have had just tasted like mango and vanilla.  It was super nice for the chilly day.
  A few of the companies, like Miyoko, had some new products to let the public try before they hit shelves.  I made sure to take a picture of the name of the company before the samples, that way I would be able to try and find the things again later.
  There are a few reasons that there are so many pictures from Vegan Treats.  According to my phone, the shop is only about a 3.5 hour drive away.  While that is a bit of a hike for desserts, I think it is worth it.  The line for the place was also always stretching more than 2/3 the way across the event.  We waited in line for over an hour to get to the tent.  We kept hoping that the line would go down, but even though they were getting through people quickly, it never really got shorter.  When we got to the front they were at the point where they had everything out that was left.  So many things were sold out.  We even saw two things sell out while we were next in line.
  I got two of their Fried "Chicken" and Waffle donuts.  The faux chicken tasted so good, I want it on sandwiches.  The donut was so fluffy and had a faintly maple taste to the glaze.  I also got a cannoli which had chocolate chips through the whole thing.  There was also a Tres Leches that caught my eye.  The whipped topping was creamy and not very sweet, it offset the cake nicely.  The cake was moist and tasted like vanilla cookie batter.
  Not every vendor was food.  There were some apparel and accessory vendors and some information booths.  A few of the various vendors were even donating some of their sales to help the victims of Hurricane Harvey.  I thought that was pretty awesome of them.
  I had brought my knitting with me, but it was raining so randomly that it never got a chance to come out.  I was too excited to work on it during the ride in and I had too many bags to keep track of on the way home.  I can't wait for next year, I will make sure to go to certain places first because a few of them either had insane lines, or ran out before we got back around to them.

I went and did it again.

Last night Bill somehow convinced me to go for a ride on the back of his new motorcycle.  We went out to dinner.  He took me on a quick ride around the neighborhood to make sure I could handle it.  I had to practice some deep breathing exercises and my back muscles were still tense.

He convinced me to go back out again today.  I wanted to take some knitting so I could take pictures of it to make it seem like it fit in more if I posted about it here, but he wanted me to try it without the backpack.

Our first stop was at this little park/monument on a small island. I thought it looked kind of like he wanted to give you a high-five, though I don't know anyone tall enough to reach.

From the road you could also see the really cool looking church that is on the upper left of this picture.  I also liked the clock tower and that bridge going over the Potomac River.

This tree has a kind of funny story to go with it.  This is the first picture Bill ever sent me after he got his first motorcycle and went out riding with it.  In the text he said "wish you could be here" and now I have finally gotten to go out there.

After all the fun we stopped at Milwaukee Frozen Custard, pistachio was the flavor of the day.
On the ride I both discovered a very uncomfortable way to sit, and how to fix it.  When I was first getting on I was centering myself while the bike was still tilted a little.  This caused me to be off center while we were riding and for my knee to start hurting.  Once I fixed that it was a lot better.  I have also started holding on to the side bar when we are stopping so I don't feel like I am just running in to him with no way to stop.

I promise there has been progress on projects.  It's way too dark to get any pictures tonight, but I promise you will get some.

Cherry Blossoms!

The scarf and I went on an adventure in DC!

We started by looking for some Toynbee tiles.  We did not have much luck, but we did find this little guy.  We are not sure if he is one of them or not.

Farther down we found the cherry blossoms.  The scarf liked them and thought they made nice company.  It was also cool that we could see the Washington Monument too.

 A little farther down the area we ran into Paddles the Beaver.  Paddles told us a very valuable message.  Unlike some people we saw, we did not pick the blossoms.  The scarf did not mention to Paddles how it had climbed one of the trees earlier.

After we were done having fun in the sun it was time to go to a few museums.  There was an orchid exhibition that I liked a lot.  The scarf thought it was a bit too girly, but did like this one.  It looks a bit like a sitting person, and who knows, they could be knitting.

After a long day we went home and worked on a few rows together.