Monday, January 12, 2009

Winter Wonderland

My body hurts today. In the best possible way, actually. It hurts because I FINALLY made it to the snow for a ski adventure! Weee! So yeah, it hurts. But it hurts because I worked the shit out of some muscles that haven't been worked in 2 years. Gotta love those ski muscles that I always forget exist. I don't really mind because they can't possibly hurt this much the next time we go. It's the first time back muscle blues.

Tahoe was beautiful, as usual. I wish there had been more snow and less melting going on, it being January and all... but we had a gorgeous day on the mountain with sun-shiny weather and fully groomed runs. I was a happy camper! It was all hard-packed snow, which works better for me (as the single skier) anyways. Not too icy. Not too cold. Not too many people (since we went on Friday). Just right for a first time back.

Ben and I rode up with Ryan in his truck. Luckily, it hasn't snowed in awhile, so chains were not necessary. We left Thursday at around 3 and made it up to JT's cabin in Myers a few hours later. I had to sit in the back seat of his Colorado and let me tell you, it was not the most comfortable of spots! I do not recommend riding there on road trips if at all possible! The seat is just tiny, my butt kept slipping off... and the back rest part is straight up and down-perfect posture only! It could definitely have been worse, but I was wishing for front seat rights the whole way (I figured Ben would have been umpteen times more uncomfortable if he had sat back there, so I sucked it up).

The cabin/house was awesome. So perfect for the winter. I'm jealous that JT is there until March. Of course, I hope there's more snow soon so that it's actually worthwhile for him to be up there that long! Thursday night we made some tacos and played some cards in front of the furnace. Went to bed semi-earliesh, so that we would wake up semi-earliesh and get to Kirkwood. I needed to rent my gear (which I had a half-off coupon for, woot), so we planned on getting there around 8:30. I think it was actually pretty close to that time. Since it was a weekday, the lines were essentially non-existent and we geared up in pretty good time.

Again, the slopes were pretty nice, all things considered. We stuck to the intermediate level runs, which were almost too much for me. I don't know when I became a little scared-y cat on skis, but I felt a bit overwhelmed. By the end of the day, I did feel like I was getting my feet back... but by then, I was also starting to hurt. Ski boots make it so you are in constant squat position. Ouch!

After getting cleaned up and eating some more tacos, we hit up the casinos. I actually left $25 richer than I got there. That almost never happens. We played a little roulette and some Hold 'Em (you against dealer only). At the end of the night, Ryan put $20 on red for roulette and doubled up. Then proceeded to do it twice more.... so he made out all right too. Even Ben made back 170%! And that's sweet cuz all those drinks were actually free! And boy, did I have too many.

The next day we drove back. JT was coming back for Bobby's surprise party too, so he brought back Ben and I gotted to sit in the front. Phew and thank you! My legs are so sore, I can't imagine how another 4 hrs in that back seat would have treated me.

So there was my small vacation before school starts back up. I still have until the 27th, although I need to start the hw before that (don't ask-I know, it sucks). I'm hoping for some more snow fall soon so we can maybe check out Heavenly and Sierra...I'd like to maybe take another snowboarding lesson if I feel like I got enough skiing in (and don't mind being on the bunny slopes for a whole day). But, we'll see.