If you spend any length of time in a famous-ish place you will likely see some sort of bumper sticker that will alert you to the fact that you are not lucky enough to be from that famous-ish place. A reminder that you are just visiting and that some people actually get to live at the beach or off the ski slope. Stickers that say “I’m a Local” or simply “Local.” When we lived in Colorado we noticed that folks out there made a big fuss over being a “native.” Since most of the folks who reside in Colorado are really from Texas or California, if you were one of the few who were actually born on Rocky Mountain soil, you earned the badge “native.” Colorado natives slapped stickers on their cars to alert you to the fact that, even if you were to live out the rest of your life in that state, you were still somehow on vacation.

All this talk about locals is fascinating to me. I love to watch the attitudes of people shift once they get a permanent residence in some cool place like Maui or Lake Tahoe. Most of the time, to be a local is to be lucky enough to live where the rest of us only spend one week a year. I can respect the pride in that. I am still lame enough to have kept my Colorado license plate (never was a native but somehow, the fact that I skied and paid taxes in that state makes me prideful).

All this local talk has me thinking. I am currently reading a book called “Plenty: Eating Locally on the 100 Mile Diet.” It’s by two Canadians named Alisa Smith and JB Mackinnon. I am loving it. It’s just a simple book really, two super crunchy eco-types who live just outside of Vancouver, B.C. (talk about lucky locals). Lots of chatter about food and where it comes from and how we’ve lost the art of understanding our food and how it grows. Stuff I’ve been thinking about for a while actually, since Barbara Kingsolver crept into my fridge. But if you’ve not had the chance to think about your food in a while, pick it up. It’s a great lesson on life and food and what it means to have enough.

So anyway, I digress. In a super small nutshell, the basic idea of eating locally is this. Most of our meals travel 2000+ miles before we eat them (take a salad for example: think lettuce from California + tomatoes from Mexico + Palm oil from Indonesia + packaging + chemical additives + the 20+ ingredients in salad dressing that had to come from somewhere). This is an odd phenomenon when you consider the fact that many of us live in places where food that we can eat is grown some 100 or so miles away. I live in Illinois. Farmland galore. Wisconsin is just to the north of us, less than 100 miles away. Dairy State. But if I am not careful, I will stock my fridge with cheese from Europe and lettuce from California. So the idea of eating locally is eating what is grown near you, what is in season by you. The point, cut down on carbon emissions and gas and waste, and learn what actually grows where you live. Like people did for hundreds of years before Con Agra Foods.

So I was in the grocery store tonight. It has become a haunting experience for me lately. My kids nag me for Twizzlers, so we get them. This is one part of my life. The other part is writhing in pain over how insane what we eat really is. I try to keep my cart filled with fresh stuff but I have lots and lots of boxes and Cheezits too. I am proud to say I rarely, other than for chicken nuggets, get anything frozen. There is no need. Ice-cream excluded of course. So I am making strides. There are more bags of fresh produce than there are boxes of stuff. More organic items with short ingredient lists than the Twinkies and Hi-C juice I grew up on.

Anyway, when I got to the berries (which I would have grabbed at the farmer’s market but that is not until Wednesday and we are out of food, just got home from vacation), so when I got to the berries, the sign said “Eat Local.” The sign was hovering over the berries, swinging in the air conditioned breeze. I was giddy. I pushed my wobbly cart with the lame-o wheel over to the berries. “Victory!” I thought to myself. Then I noticed that all the berries were from California. California?!?!?!?! This is considered local? I live in Chicago. LA is 2070 miles away. It takes about 30 some hours by car. This is not local. 

Although, I suppose when you consider the fact that the berries could have been trucked in from South America, then California is local. And I have always wanted to surf and be cool, so maybe this is local eating? Nope. The strawberries were what made me weak in the knees. I love them. My dad grew them when we were kids and I remember ever little detail of his growing them. My mom grew rhubarb in the back of the yard. And when the strawberries and rhubarb would meet in a cobbler recipe of my grandmothers, it was heaven. So I get all giggly about strawberries. But 2000+ miles is too far for a gal trying to eat more locally.

So if you find yourself in this dilemma, better wait until they show up at the Farmer’s Market from a local grower, of just wait until later in the summer when they are in season. This is the best way to eat locally. Eat what is in season.

Or, eat from your garden. I pulled radishes today. I sort of hate radishes, but they were ready and I am eating them. I am going to pickle them. I’ve never pickled anything in my life. But this is the only way to make them go down and I am ready to do it. They are not strawberries. But they are also not from California. I also have fresh basil and mint and sage ready to go. My carrots are coming up nicely and my tomatoes are growing like crazy. I am dreaming of pico de gallo and salsa for the next few months. And Michigan blueberries are on the move. So all will be well. I don’t need to be a local from California. Just gotta wait a bit longer for the strawberries.

PS, if this all seems like a bit of a stretch for you, then consider simply buying food from the US versus overseas. For example, at our dairy counter I can get Muenster cheese from Finland or Muenster cheese from Wisconsin. I buy the Wisconsin cheese. I can get apples from Washington or from Canada. I buy them from Washington. Small steps are still steps!

Shark Fishing South Carolina

We saw turtles and alligators today. An Ibis and some sort of crane too. Excellent fun this vacation stuff! Right now the hubby is out by the pool with our two boys. Goggles and water wings galore. The baby is trying to settle into her nap. This is easier said than done when she has finally reached an age where she knows she is missing out on something. Which, leaves me running up and down the stairs to check on things and lots of time to blog about our trip. For those of you just logging on, I am totally a vacation blogger from South Carolina this week. Fabulous Family Reunion Fun!

Check out the previous two posts to get caught up (Holiday Road #1 and #2).

I need your input on this one. Honestly, I do. Most of my blogs involve me rambling about some issue that I may or may not really have an answer to. I guess this is how most of life goes though right? We may or may not have answers and the moment we dare to exercise the audacity that says we do indeed have an answer, things change. So even when I have an answer I hold loosely to it (most of the time, I am also a stubborn pistol that hangs on for dear life lots of times). But this time, I am at a loss. There are piles of opinions on the little story I am about to share and I would honestly value the conversation on this one for sure. So log on and fire out a thought if you have one. Here goes:

Sunday I went shark fishing with my husband, Joel and his dad (also known as Grandpa John). It was Father’s Day. I will tell you that it was awesome to be bouncing across the harbor in a little fishing boat, just the three of us and a guide. Even though I am clearly not a man and even more clearly, not a dad, it was cool to be doing some manly thing like fishing with my husband (a dad) and his dad. Shark fishing. Our guide was a guy named Greg. A local for 27 years, raising a family down here in this humid little world. He was unflappable and witty and the perfect picture of a completely local fishing guide.

We fished for sharks. Catch and release. Greg, our guide, seemed to know everything about his little slice of the ocean. As we headed out from Harbor Town he told us all about the tide and why the waves were bigger today and how at 7:30 the tide would peak and the full moon was coming. And he hauled a little net along with us that, when we stopped, he tossed into the water to catch bait. And let’s just say that the bait we were about to use were the size of most good midwestern fish. And he knew all about the ebb and the flow of the current and where to find bait and what the birds were doing above us and how the water looked shadowy to him so that he knew where to toss in his net. None of this made any sense to me and with my landlubber eyes I could not tell what he was talking about, but he knew his stuff.

And he knew all about sharks and how to catch them and which ones were annoying and overpopulated and sort of like noxious weeds and which ones were marvelous creatures that were beautiful and wild. And he knew how to pull out a hook so the fish supposedly did not suffer. And as I caught my first shark and then watched him pull the hook out, I shrieked a bit (much to my chagrin) and jumped onto the seat of the boat to get far away from my snaggle-toothed fish. And I told him that I was a bit of an environmentalist and asked how bad this all hurt the fish. He said it didn’t. I did not believe him. Then he said “aw, you ain’t with like PETA or something are ya?” “Would I be on this boat shark fishing if I was?” I answered. 

Anyway, it was all cool. And as I went about catching wild things from the ocean that day I also learned so much, so very much about currents and tides and pelicans and the names of 5 different kinds of sharks I did not even know existed! I learned a ton as a poser sportswoman that day.

Which brings me to my question. I’ve always poo-pooed hunting and fishing as these sort of controversial hobbies that kill things. When my husband heads out to hunt for deer every November I get all snippy and angry about it. I tell him that he should not hunt things he won’t eat. To which he replies that he will eat that deer. To which I say, why don’t you just go to the grocery store. To which he says, why, to eat over-processed hormone filled meat when he can eat the good stuff he killed with his own effort. Good point.

Joel knows a ton about the forest and about deer and about how they sleep and nest and rub antlers on trees and mate. The guys I knew in Colorado know a ton about Elk and migration and the mountains and how to find them. Fisher men and women know more about lakes and rivers and the ocean than anyone else I know. Turns out they want the very animals they hunt to survive as well. Without them they have no sport. And some of these men and women are the best advocates for the planet that I have ever met. Their livelihood and recreation and for some, their food depends on it all.

So when I hook a shark on vacation, what does this mean? I’m not a sportswoman, I’d not held a fishing pool in years. I had a ton of fun and the adrenaline rush of reeling in a 40+ pound black tip shark that is pulling you around the boat is amazing. And then the hook comes out and the fish goes back. So is this a problem? I don’t know.

I do know that I took a great picture of my husband and his dad on the back of the boat. All smiles. Vacation fun. I know that this picture is so good that I will someday blow it up and frame it. I probably did not have to be shark fishing to get that shot. but I was. What do I do with this?

We are on vacation. It is 100+ degrees on vacation. Wow. South Carolina heat. After driving the 900 some miles from Chicago to Hilton Head Island, we have arrived and it is gorgeous and it is sunny and it is lighthouses and the beach and cafes on the water. And it is simply wonderful to be away from home and the phone and my laundry (even though that seems to have followed us down here and will likely follow me home). And for those of you reading this who are not currently on vacation, I am sorry about that. But just think, sometime soon-ish you will be resting in a deck chair and I will not be and it will all even out.

Driving across the country with three kids did not pan out exactly as I had planned. We left late with the hope that they would all sleep in the car. They did not. The next day, not so much sleeping either. We ate organic cheetos and they are sort of gross. A cheeto is really still a cheeto, organic or not. They yellow stuff sticks to everyone’s hands and gets stuck in the cracks of all the car seats and when you add this to spilled milk, the juice of a few runaway grapes, and the strawberries we snacked on, it all is quite a sticky mess. They you arrive at your vacation destination and it is 100 degrees. Everything and everyone is sticky. And in my giddy “I am so on vacation” bliss I keep grabbing and hugging my kids and it is just sticky, sticky, gooey stick everywhere.

So here we are, sticky and happy in Hilton Head. Not too shabby I must say. I went running this morning. Talk about sticky and gross. But it was only 7:00 AM so that meant it was only in like the upper 80’s . . . . . and it was quiet and simple and lovely. And there are lagoons where alligators are rumored to live. I jogged past them looking for little lumpy heads that were popping up out of the flat water. Nothing yet. I saw a Sandhill Crane. That was cool. Heard the calls of all sorts of birds from the trees. There is moss dripping off all the tree limbs and these Banyan sort of tree roots everywhere. And even thought it is like a million degrees it is still shady in most places. And as I ran I sort of wafted in and out of two different worlds.

One was the Antebellum South where Gone With The Wind kept coming to mind. I kept thinking that Scarlet or someone would come popping out of the woods with corn bread. I thought about how people used to pick cotton in this heat and it made me sick for them. And then there was the world of Gary Player golf courses where I kept fearing that I would get in trouble by accidentally mixing up the bike path I was running on with the golf cart paths that clearly said something like this “Don’t you dare come on this path unless you are golfing!”

It’s a strange mix of care for the natural world and high end living down here. On the one hand they monitor the height of the lights that can be seen from the water so that sea turtles can mate and migrate properly. The whole island is modest with lighting and advertising and you can see stars from here and they take great pains to keep it that way. And on the other hand, there are 10 ga-gillion dollar yachts docked in the harbor and million dollar homes that are only used once a year. It always amazes me how someone can own a home bigger than most people in the world will ever see, and only visit it once a year. Ski towns are like this too. Slopeside condos that go for 2 mil and get stayed in 2 weeks a year.

I’m just a loser from the North who came down to rent a condo. I’m okay with that. I’m not Jimmy Buffet and I don’t have a yacht. I do have air conditioning in my condo and while everything green in me would love to give it a go and just open the windows to reduce our carbon emissions. It is seriously supposed to be 105 degrees today. So the AC is raging like a machine. 

So once again I am sitting with the dichotomies of my life. A great trip. A rockstar family. A good time at the beach. Lots of shells to look for, alligators to spot, and Banyan trees to admire (at least I think they are called Banyan trees, the guided nature walk is not until Tuesday). And then, there is the AC cranked up high, the sunblock with toxins to protect us all from the toxic sun. There are the uber-rich with boats and there is me with all my vacation attire and our condo that is uber-rich compared to the rest of the world, even if super modest for our world.

It’s the dichotomies that we live with so often. And I won’t obsess about it all this week, but I am aware of it. Aware of the fact that I need to tread lightly but sometimes don’t. Aware of the fact that there is always someone who looks richer and more foolish than I do, but aware of the fact that I am that someone to another person in this world. Aware of the fact that as I dine on Crab and Shrimp this week that it may have come from overfished waters. Aware of the fact that it takes a whole lot of electricity to cool this little eco-sensitive island.

Aware of the fact is all I am at the moment, I will look this week for a way to be more, but right now, this is all I am. There is wine to drink and I am on vacation. So here’s a toast to learning about the local wildlife and hoping that I can at least remember to turn off all the lights and avoid plastic water bottles!

It’s summer vacation time. Millions of Americans flitting about the country or the globe. People off to see Mount Rushmore or the Eiffel Tower. People swatting mosquitos and dripping in sunblock. Rest Areas and truck stops filled with road weary travelers. Airport security lines growing longer as the days continue to grow longer. Good times this American summer thing is.

I am a firm believer in the fact that a road trip builds character. We grew up in a family that road tripped and camped everywhere from Glacier National Park to Acadia National Park. We drove from Maine to Florida to Arizona and everywhere in between. We stopped at Wall Drug and we saw Rock City and we toured the Badlands and we camped in Orlando so we could see Mickey Mouse. When we were little, summer vacation meant my mom would sew my sister, my dad and I matching t-shirts that said “I love camping.” I can imagine that my dad was not overly thrilled with this. It meant we would load up the big blue Ford van my dad had with coolers and camping gear. And it meant we would listen to Kenny Rogers as we cruised across the country.

“You gotta know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em. Know when to walk away. Know when to run. You never count your money, when your sittin’ at the table. They’ll be time enough for countin’. When the dealin’s done.” Preach it Kenny!

My dad would listen to this song and sing along loudly as we cruised down the highway. His right hand tapping his knee as he drove. My mom would have her shoes off and her feet up on the dashboard, tapping her toes as well. We’d be in the back playing with silly kitschy stuff we picked up in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.

I love these memories. I love that we had to learn how to share a back seat with a sibling for two weeks. Love that we got lost and watched mom and dad fight over it. Love that we ate random food we’d never heard of before. Love that sometimes the AC went out and we sweated across the mid-section of the country. Love that we camped out and grilled out and that we saw the country. It is a rite of passage that is undeniably American. Everyone must do this. Road trip.

We are embarking on our own today. A family reunion on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina. No camping, a condo is our ultimate destination, but the drive will be the same. We have been packing for six weeks. I am tired and crazy from trying to find matching pairs of flip flops and lost sippy cups. I cannot find the charger for my iPod and have no clue if our newly potty trained middle son will make it all the way without an accident. But nonetheless, I am GIDDY!

We don’t have Kenny Rogers on the 8-Track. My husband grew up listening to Roger Whittaker with his family. We don’t have him downloaded either. But we did decide that Paul Simon would be our traveling music. It’s our vacation sing along. “I can call you Eddie and you can call me Al.” My kids will someday say “remember when Dad made us listen to that song about diamonds on the soles of our shoes?” And remember when they had iPods! How old school is that?!

This they will say someday as they reminisce. Our big family master plan is to road trip the life our of our kids. They will camp and hike and cover every inch of interstate this nation has to offer if we have anything to say about it. And since they are all under age 6, we currently have much to say about it. They will eat at Wall Drug and we will visit my sister in Bend, Oregon and we will camp on the beach someday. But today, we leave for Hilton Head and this is very exciting. It means beaches and the Salty Dog Cafe and lots of good times in the sun.

We will leave at rush hour in Chicago so, really, we will go nowhere pretty fast. But it’s the spirit of it all.

I could fly. It would not be easy and it would be pricey. But there is a lot to be learned as you drive across the country. And as far as eco-stuff goes, one trip on a plane is equal to several summers of road trips. Air travel accounts for roughly 3% of all carbon emissions worldwide. This is a lot for one industry. And this also does not account for airports and the infrastructure necessary to support air travel. This is just carbon emissions form the planes. It’s a big messy business. Jet Fuel. So bring on that open road. Bring on Paul and Kenny and Roger. Bring on the truck stops with the strange food. Road Trip!

It’s been raining non stop in Chicago. Lots of unseasonably cool temps, lots of rain, lots of what Seattle must be like in the Spring. It’s supposed to be about 80 degrees and happy sunny here this time of year, but it’s been raining for long days and hovering around about 60 degrees. ugh. The kids have been cooped up, I have been cooped up, even the mosquitos have been cooped up. So today when the rain let up at about 1:00 and the clouds yielded to the sun by 2:00, we were outside instantly.

We met up with my parents to attend a festival in their town. This is one of my favorite things about my parents, they love festivals. My whole childhood they drove us all over the midwest to attend art shows and craft fairs and gardening festivals and wine festivals and fall festivals. Winter carnivals in December too. It’s what we did. We’d eat buttery ears of corn, tap our feet to some local band, take a spin on the tilt-a-whirl, buy a jingly bracelet from some local artisan, and then head home all fat and happy. I would not trade this for anything.

So when the sun broke though we were on our way to the summer festival where my parents live. It was good fun. They had Kettle Corn and inflatable jumpy things for my boys to flop around in. True weekend bliss for this rain soaked family. After bouncing and jumping for an hour, hunger kicked in and we headed over to get some snacks. We are nothing if we are not a snaking family. My little green heart wished that there was some local farmer’s market selling carrots and kale. But instead we sidled up to the ice-cream and cookie booth. Not too shabby either. 

We kicked back at a table with our little festival delicacies. The band in the center of the park was a Jimmy Buffet cover band. So, we sang along to Cheeseburgers in Paradise and smiled as the kids pretended that a hose running through the grass was a balance beam. It was sunny. The ice-cream was melting. It finally felt like summer in Chicago.

After the ice-cream we headed to the carnival section of the festival. Big festivals can be amazing dichotomies. Today there was an art show, some fundraisers, music in the park, schools out promoting educational programs, and then there were the carnival rides. A blur of lights, flighty ride attendants, and 80’s metal big hair band music blaring. I think I heard Poison. Can two different worlds come closer together? But the kids love the rides and the games and it is amazing fun to watch them zip around on a little metal kiddie roller coaster. They have smiles plastered across their faces and so do we. Who cannot smile at a 3 year old screaming at the top of his lungs with pure adrenaline and joy. My Dad is a champ. He shelled out a small fortune in ride tickets for my children.

Then we hit the games. Again, pure fun for the kids. Pure anxiety for me. As they fished for prizes and shot hoops I stared at all the toxic toys hanging from the ceilings of the game booths. Random stuffed teddy bears, giant plastic balls, inflatable mallets. We played the games that guaranteed a winner. This delighted my kids of course. And as my little ones snuggled their strange stuffed toys, filled with toxic junk, made in China, sold for a steal, and walked through the festival with pride, it was all I could do not to tell them to keep the toys away from their eyes and not to smell them.

They are now sleeping. They are snuggling blue whales and yellow ducks. This makes me nervous. But how many times do you rain on their proverbial parade? Where is the balance? We’re not normally stuffed animal toting carnival types, but on a sunny day with my mom and dad and my kids and some Jimmy Buffet music, I was tempted to let them try to win the life-sized pink bunny that hangs from the most challenging game. It was a fabulous day!

So, tonight they snuggle the stuffed toys. I’m going to be okay with it. Someday when they are not looking they will disappear to a landfill. This I am not overly happy about. I want to try and reconcile this. I will likely find some way to do penance for the planet. I will likely toss out a few more flowers or seeds of some sort. Maybe buy a carbon offset. That could work too.

Regardless, I am aware. I am thinking this through. I had a fabulous day with my family. It came with a small toxic price tag. One I was willing to pay and make up for later. Bummer that so many things come with these price tags. A carnival. Something simple. Something fun. Something once again made in China. So yes, we won, but it cost us too. “We’ll take the yellow fuzzy duck on the left.”