Salt-Water Taffy and Pepto Bismol

Spent the last few days exploring the Olympic National Rain Forest. Visited little tiny beach towns in western Washington. I've never seen commercial crabbing boats before. I've never seen so many hardworking fishermen. At one of these tiny towns, Westport, WA, I visited a candy shoppe. Super cute. I used to buy little sacks of fresh-pulled taffy every time I visited Cannon Beach and Seaside. I got nostalgic. I found two flavors of sugar-free taffy. Not wanting to know what the secret ingredient was, I bought two pieces of watermelon taffy and four pieces of vanilla. Warm. Soft, like they had been in my pocket. I ate them right away and they were out-of-this world delicious. I savored the moment.

Two hours later my stomach began making extra-terrestrial noises. Jeff thought it was the truck. I popped two tablets of Pepto Bismol and then two more. I was fine. I felt totally irresponsible for eating something without checking the ingredients, but they were sugar-free! Oh, and then Jeff asks if I read the ingredients of the Pepto tablets. No, dang it. I looked later. The culprits for making the cherry Pepto tablets taste so good: saccharin sodium, mannitol and flavor, not to mention all of the other strange ingredients and the food coloring used to make the tablets so perfectly pink.

As well as the taffy being exceptional, my mini vacation was quite wonderful. I enjoyed the rain forest, Port Angeles, Port Townsend, the sunshine, and all of the sand dollars lying around the beach. The key to such a perfect, comfortable 3-day trip on the road was a bag of healthy food I kept in the truck and lots of fresh water. I was able to refresh my snacks at a great co-op in Port Townsend and I also visited a health food store in Port Angeles that has been in business for 34 years.