Tahoe II

[cjsmith]

By Thursday morning it was clear none of us was truly happy to ski that day. My left thumb was still swollen, the guys were a little tired, and the weather was also much more rotten -- cloudy, foggy, windy, cold. Our lift tickets were two-days-out-of-three, so we postponed the second day of skiing until Friday.

Tried to go snowshoeing, but Rob didn't have boots and we didn't find anyplace to rent any. Sneakers wouldn't cut it. So after some errands we went snowmobiling! The Zephyr Cove snowmobile place bussed us to a place up past Cave Rock, where they have seventy miles of trails for guided groups to use. Because of my thumb (left hand is the brake) I elected to ride double with Rob. It took everybody a little while to get the hang of driving these machines. Definitely new to me. I bet motorcycle riders get the feel of leaning into the turns faster than the rest of us do. It was exhilarating, though, swishing through the snow and the clouds and the trees while snow fell thickly all around us. This is definitely the right kind of transportation for certain terrain/weather conditions. I drove very briefly at the end and am glad I tried it -- wheee! :-)

On the way back "home", stopped off at a place selling hemp textiles. I now have a beautiful green hemp sweater and a hemp/Tencel blend blouse. Mmmm. The texture of each of them is lovely.

By this time Ethan's right thumb was having similar symptoms to my left. We stopped at a drugstore to get tape and a splint to keep him from using it throughout the evening. Ethan and I ate the last of yesterday's stir-fry along with some miso soup, and we attacked another bottle of wine. I'm glad skiing burns so many calories. We played games: Labyrinth, Settlers of Catan, Fluxx, and Five Crowns. Ethan has unholy luck at Five Crowns. He kept getting dealt perfect hands.

Friday morning we ate everything we could stuff down our gullets, because we had no place to keep food after checking out. Then we went back to Heavenly. The weather had improved again. Boy did we pick our weather days right! This time we parked at the base of the gondola. I bought some thin silk sock liners to use instead of my thick fluffy wool socks - my right boot was feeling too tight - and I also chose to carry only one pole. Both of these decisions made me more comfortable.

We stayed on the Nevada side all day, trying terrain parks and moguls. I suck at moguls. They're designed for a certain speed, and I'm not good enough for that speed yet, so half the time I go across instead of between. That's probably a required phase in the learning process. Maybe some day I'll do them right. On the other hand, I seem to be pretty good at small jumps. There's a fine line between not fast enough and way too fast, but once I got the hang of that I was fine. After one hilarious wipeout I was doing jumps with no trouble.

Midafternoon my knees had had it, so no more moguls on the last run. Ethan thoughtfully stayed with me just in case I got markedly worse on the way down. We also saw clouds closing in on the western side of the lake. Hmm. End of the day for us! We made our way across to the gondola about a half hour before all the lifts closed, dropped off our skis, and were on our way before chains became required at Echo Summit. Yes!

Stunningly beautiful sunset on the way home. It was great to watch it slowly change throughout the long drive. Also saw a partial sun pillar - wow! (Only partial clouds, that's why. Still, pretty cool!)

The three of us soaked in our hot tub before Ethan went home. We all agreed it had been a great trip.

If I'm going to get better at skiing, I'm probably going to have to find some way to strengthen my knee joints. Also, my glasses kept fogging up under my goggles. The anti-fog cloth did nothing for it. Must find some way to fix that; some day the reduced visibility will be dangerous.

Now the aches are all gone and I'm just about ready to do it again. :-)