It’s been a weird day, time-wise.

I’m technically in the Pacific time zone now, but have to work according to an Eastern schedule, so that means I had to be at work for 5:00 a.m, which has thoroughly thrown off my eating schedule.

It was easy to get to bed early last night since I was so exhausted and I was awake around 4:15 without an alarm clock. There was work waiting for me, so I made a coffee and got cracking. By the time 6:00 rolled around and the restaurant opened, I was beyond ready for breakfast!

I took my computer and phone down with me to the restaurant so that I could respond if any work came in. Breakfast was an excellent buffet with lots of options, no excuse to leave hungry. The coffee was good, too. I look forward to seeing what they have tomorrow as they said that the options change daily. Based on today, I know it will be worth waiting to leave on Friday morning to do so on a full belly.

Despite a good breakfast, I was ready for lunch by 10:00! I had a bit of a picnic, but was displeased that the fridge runs super cold and all my food was frozen! Carrots lose their structural integrity when frozen and thawed, so they end up rather chewy!

I clock out at 4PM EST and another colleague stays on till 5PM EST, but I like to keep a weather eye on my emails if the daily article hasn’t been mailed out by 5PM in case something crops up with it. That was the case today, so I sent a quick email about that and then went off to find food.

My choices within walking distance were Pizza Hut, Denny’s, and Mexican fare, not too inspiring. I’d been to Denny’s twice a very long time ago in Savannah and in San Diego and thought the food was crap, so I didn’t go again until a couple of years ago in Red Deer when it wasn’t my decision. The food I had then had nothing in common with the Denny’s I remembered, ie. it was really good. So I decided to take a chance on that today.

I wound up paying $7.25 for my meal with the tip and I would have paid twice that and thought I got a bargain… I could not believe how good the food was, its freshness, or the quality of the ingredients. Yes, at a Denny’s chain diner! Mind blown.

I had their new $6 ‘Baja quesadilla burger’, which is a real beef patty topped with a bit of cheese, pico de gallo, and avocado, then sandwiched in a flour tortilla. It comes with a side of forgettable and over salty Mexican-style corn chips and meh salsa, so ignore that part of the meal. I actually don’t care much for the taste of beef (but I appreciated that I was eating real meat, no fillers), so I added a liberal amount of Cholula sauce to give it the flavour it needed. As for the pico de gallo, this was the real thing, no skimping on the jalapeños. Between that and the Cholula sauce, my eyes were watering, but I wasn’t in major pain, not like I would have been at time last year eating a moderately spicy meal. Plus, there was tons of avocado to soothe my wounded taste buds! Since I didn’t eat the chips, the meal came in at a very reasonable nutritional count (I appreciated that Denny’s has the nutritional info for everything printed right on the menu).

After linner, I decided to walk down to the Walmart since my phone said it was 2.5KM away, meaning just far enough to get in a leg stretch, but not so far as to feel like a slog. The temperature was cool compared to yesterday, so the walk was very pleasant. They didn’t have any warm weather stuff either, but I poked through the clearance items for treasures and found a top I liked.

Like the server at the Denny’s, the Walmart cashier also only spoke Spanish to me, so I now know I still remember my numbers. 🙂 Nogales is really a good prep stop before entering Mexico!

It was a lot hotter out when I left Walmart and it was uphill most of the way back to the hotel, so I definitely got in some exercise today.

When I arrived back at the hotel, I popped in at the front desk to get my breakfast coupon for tomorrow. The clerk asked me to confirm that the room is okay (YES!).

Now, it’s time for a beer slushy. Dang, that fridge really does run cold!