On The Road Again...

My mom and I have been on the road since Wednesday, doing product demos at 7 more Whole Foods stores in Washington D.C., VA and MD. I have to say that I love road trips, no matter what they're for- work or vacation- I love traveling. Having a stash of yummy snacks and a collection of good music helps too!

On Thursday we were doing demos in Silver Spring, MD and Washington D.C. I drove most of the way (mom was winglady and chief navigator as she sat in the front passenger seat) and boy are there some aggressive drivers in the D.C. area. I guess you kind of have to be, if bottleneck traffic is an everyday occurrence. But overall the traffic didn't bother me all that much and I gave myself a little pat on the back for managing to find my way through D.C. and remain accident free on the Capital Beltway.

On Friday I did demos in Arlington, VA and Rockville, MD and my mom handed out samples in the Tenley Town area of D.C. We sold a good amount of product and by this point had clocked a good amount of miles on our little car.

We spent today (Saturday) in Charlottesville. It was great to be back at my old college stomping grounds. Before going to the demo we had scheduled for today, we visited the grounds of UVA and even had breakfast at my favorite bagel place. Everytime I go to Charlottesville, I still feel completely nostalgic for the years I spent in school there. It's such a wonderful feeling, and I hope that never changes.

Here are some random and fun shots from our trip so far:











Our car was packed to the gills with boxes of Cupola Cookies and Cupola Clouds samples before we left Pittsburgh.











Silver Spring Whole Foods












The Obama car- it was covered in Obama stickers and the Obama campaign slogan "Yes We Can"- A creative and quirky way to show support!












A neat aerial shot of the Alexandria Whole Foods- the seating area for this store is on the second floor, so you can get an interesting bird's eye view from up there.















Bodo's Bagels- They may make the best bagels in all of Virginia- I kid you not. My fav: Egg and Cheese on Whole Wheat.

Product Demos Galore

I'm writing this morning from my computer as I wait for a shipment of our Cupola Cookies & Clouds to get picked up and sent to our distributor.

This past weekend the temperature got up to 68 degrees, a sure sign that Spring is on its way!

This is also demo season for us. Two weeks ago, I drove down to the Washington D.C., Northern Virginia and Maryland to do a couple product demos at Whole Food stores in the area. Let me begin by saying how much fun it is to visit different Whole Foods locations! You know those people that take road trips to visit different baseball fields around the country? I'm seriously thinking that the equivalent of that for me would be taking a cross country trip to visit Whole Foods stores (and I'm not just saying this because the stores carry our products).

Here's how my product demo expedition worked out:

Whole Foods Harbor East (Baltimore, MD)- Located right by the Inner Harbor. My demo location was right in the front of the store, which was fantastic- I was able to get customers that were entering the store and those standing in line to check out to sample or Cupola Cookies. And as a bonus, the store had a great coffee bar!

Whole Foods Vienna (Vienna, VA)- This store is situated right in the heart of this small and cozy town, which is just a couple minutes from Washington D.C. Customers at this location seemed especially enthusiastic about our products.

Whole Foods Fair Lakes (Fairfax, VA)- Next to the flagship store in Austin, this one has to be the mother of all Whole Foods stores. The store's gelato bar (yes, gelato!) almost did me in. If it hadn't been so cold, I would have definitely tried some, but decided to go with some hot coffee instead. If only I had had more time to peruse! We actually did our product demo at this location as part of a Gluten Free Fair event that was being held on a busy Saturday afternoon. In total there were about 20 gluten-free vendors participating in the event.

We were even featured on a healthy living blog, The W.H.O.L.E. Gang, as part of the Gluten Free Fair event. Check out the post here.

Our next set of Whole Foods demos are coming up this weekend. This time we are going to be at 6 different stores over 3 days and my mom will be coming with to help. See you on the road!