While filling up my water bottle today at work, I began thinking about my decision to give up soda that I made December last year. Now that I've been soda-free for over seven months, I wondered, was the actual cost or benefit in terms of sugar and calorie intake. So I ran some numbers. I have never been a big soda drinker. One 12oz can in the afternoons at work and usually one with dinner when eating out on the weekends. [more] Assumptions 140 calories per can 10 tsp (equiv) of sugar per can Consuming one 12oz can of Coca-Cola per day Based on the assumptions above, drinking one can per day, equals 51,100 calories per year. Also,based on my weight and age, I burn 422 calories per hour walking 3.5 miles per hour. This means to burn that single can per day, I will need to walk 423 miles, …keep reading …
2008 Summer Vacation Day 8 – Loveland Pass and our return to Florida
Our official last day of vacation out West. We woke up to the sounds of life outside our condo, then ate breakfast and cleaned up. We checked out at about 9:30 and headed East on Route 6 toward Arapahoe Basin ski area and Loveland Pass. We stopped at the pass and hiked up to the peak. Brandon and I were first to the top. Trevor and Jennifer finally made it to the top after taking a few breaks. It gets extremely hard to breath at 12,000 feet plus. There was still quite a bit of snow on the North side of the peak, so the kids had a ball playing it again. One snow field was about 15 feet deep, and Brandon found a slide down it. We headed to Idaho Springs, Colorado for lunch at Beau Jo’s Colorado Style Pie. Again, this was one of those places that a few …keep reading …
2008 Summer Vacation Day 7 – Fun on Copper Mountain
Surprisingly, today was our first day to somewhat relax on the entire vacation. We slept our first of two nights at Expedition Station in the Keystone Resort. I spent a lot of time searching for a hotel or condo in this area with AC, but we discovered that, it was all a waste of time. Last night we left all of the windows open, and still needed a blanket. In fact when we woke up, it was 50 degrees outside. While in Breckenridge the day before, we learned that neither the Keystone or Breck chair lifts were running. So that basically killed our original mountain biking plan. The altitude has truly had an affect on us, so everyone was good without biking. Instead of biking, we decided to drive to Copper Mountain to ride their chair lift, do some hiking, and explore that resort. As soon as we drove into …keep reading …
2008 Summer Vacation Day 6 – Breckenridge and Keystone, Colorado
We started the day at 7AM with the great free breakfast at the hotel. I’ve officially got the kids addicted to Holiday Inn Express’ cinnamon rolls. After checking out of the hotel, we started our four hour drive from Moab to Breckenridge. We arrived in Breckenridge at about 3ish, and we spent the afternoon exploring and shopping downtown. Our original plans were to eat dinner in Breckenridge, but everyone was tired, so we decided to opt for dinner at the condo in Keystone instead. We did a little “supply” shopping at the local grocery store, picked up our keys to the condo, then headed to Keystone. Our condo is only about 20 minutes from downtown Breck.
2008 Summer Vacation Day 5 – Rafting Lake Powell and Flight from Hite
This morning we woke up to another great pot of cowboy coffee, fresh blueberry pancakes, and bacon. Last night’s sleep was not as good as the night before, at least for me. Jennifer, the kids, and I tried to get our camp packed up while we still had the shadow of the canyon on it. Other’s didn’t, and had to pack up in full sun. After packing camp, we shoved off for our last day of rafting. As soon as we were floating down river, all four of our boats were lashed together to make a huge 28 foot rafting rig, for our float into Lake Powell. The further we got into the lake, the more green and wildlife we saw. There were some amazingly high cliff faces, just beside us. Some were over 1,800 feet high.