Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Ski Trip

Time: Jan.12-14, 2007
How it came about: Jerry Ski Trip
Place: Tahoe

This year's dorm trip to Tahoe is a very different experience from the one that I went last time with Kimball. Not only has the person who used to be my friend and whom I'd liked very much has now become my best and most loving buddy who is traveling with me to everywhere, I've also realized that my state of consciousness has improved significantly since two years ago. Somehow I feel I'm more aware of my surroundings, i.e. roads that get to Tahoe, things to do around Tahoe, where fun is located, what mountains lie N, E, W, or S of Tahoe, and all that sort of geographic points of interest. I suppose this heightened sense of awareness could be taken as a sign for an improved state of consciousness? I think this is healthy!

We drove up to Tahoe in heavy traffic with Jill, Daniel, and Andy, arriving ~11pm-12am-ish. It got so cold the second day that Jill had to give up her lift ticket and abandon her plans for skiing. Poor Jill for her fingers - don't know if wearing more gloves could've helped. But we decided to sled near Mt. Rose NE of the Lake afterwards, and that kept us busy till dinner. (we found from a website that off 407 near Mt Rose there's a good sledding spot.) To get to Mt. Rose we took 50, then 28, and finally 407 on the way up the mountain. It was a steep climb up, and so relentless that we started seeing Bobmobile wearing down (Bobmobile's brakes got injured during the trip, making crunching noises when we got back down the mountain.) The altitude gave us great view of the Lake though. Its color is so blue, brilliant, like nothing else!














Driving up the road up to Mt. Rose in search for a good sledding spot!














Bobmobile taking a break from working hard on Mt. Rose.














View from a scenic overlook on 407, as Bobmobile takes a brief respite.














Bob and Jill at the scenic overlook. Silly Bob brought both green and red scarves to the trip, and indeed wore both when he drove up to Tahoe the night before.














Where we stopped to wonder whether or not to put on snow chains as a sign off the road told us to, we were puzzled as to why so many cars are parked here...














Aha! This is the legendary sledding spot that the website had described! There were many people sledding and snowshoeing all around, and the hill at left-center of the picture shows the side where we had sledded.














Buddy went first. He was the most skilled sledder of us three.



















Bud went very hard so had to to walk up very far.



















Someone looks like Pooh!














Jill in action, coming down to rescue me, who had just taken a bad stumble and looked very confused in distance.














This is me before I went straight down for the rock and bruised right side of my butt. A guy who helped me find my glasses, sled, and cap even returned my string cheese that fell out of my pocket. I almost forgot about the string cheese and was very confused when he asked "Is this your string cheese?"














I still looked a bit daze after rescue had arrived.














Jill making a snow angel.














Bob and my snow angels.



















Jill looking spiffy.

My toes were frozen even with two layers of socks on. Afterwards the sky turned dark we stopped by Incline Village's Starbucks to thaw our toes. Bob and I had a warm and very sweet cinnamon dolce drink that I read about on spokeo. Apparently this drink had been an old-time favorite that Starbucks had just revived. At night we saw movie Lassie. Buddy had always wanted to see this British production. It was very good and far superior than cheesy Disney animal movies that I've seen!














Bob and I at beach near Tahoe downtown. The Round Hill behind us is very peculiarly round, almost looking man-made.














Bob and Jill fed ducks and geese. When it was my turn one of the few ducks jumped up and bit my finger because some sticky inside of an energy bar got stuck to it. Feisty.














More duck feeding.














Portrait of a Fat Goose.














Geese and mountains of Tahoe in distance.














Living room of where we stayed.














Well bundled up.














The wind pants Bob lent me were great. They kept me very warm and and comfy and happy in -7deg, and I was able to make snow angels. I think I need a pair here at school, too, as it is getting so cold here recently.

On this trip we also went to check out Harrah's 1st floor casino, as Jill and Bob had never seen a casino before. It looked very cheap compared to those in Las Vegas, and it was even hard to breathe inside because of smokers. We also tried out the hot tub. It was always my dream to be in a hot tub outside of the house that has great scenery, just as what's on those Japanese advertisements you could pick up at any JR station. It was kind of like that, and we had a view of tall pine trees. But it was already very dark and we couldn't see anything. I got out feeling very dizzy and weak though, as I soaked in the tub for too long. There was a sharp pain in my back, too, as my muscles there were very tense.

It was a chill snow trip, and we decided that we're up for more exciting stuff next time we're up in Tahoe, such as cross-country skiing and going up the gondola. Going up the gondola is a must because Bob and I had wanted to get on it in the Kimball snow trip, but the weather was too harsh for gondolas to operate. The gondola reminded us the good times we've had before I headed out to Japan and we've become buddies. Gondola is just too expensive! We simply didn't want to drag Jill up there with us, so we'd have to wait till next time, which is not so bad because that'll just make the next trip to Tahoe all the more exciting.

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