A long weekend in Tahoe

I arrived Thursday night for a long weekend with my friends near Lake Tahoe. This is a brief summary.


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Thursday
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Arrived. Got the big black Ford hire car from Hertz and drove to Sienna and Scott's place (Penrod Lane - 20 miles South of Minden). I phoned ahead to see if i would need chains for my hire car since there had been a big dump of snow. Apparently not a problem.

On arrival I was reintroduced to Sienna and Scott's 5 dogs: Othello, Dessie, Denali, Heyduke and Sticky. They apparently remembered me since I wasn't eaten.

Had a nice chill out and some beers.

Friday
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Went to work with Sienna. Joined Terry for her Abs class, which was really good. Then me and Terry went for a run. It's not every day that you can run with someone who was the 32nd fastest female marathon runner in the world at one point. Terry claimed I was running too fast for her but don't believe it!

In the afternoon I caught up with Mr Roby and went to visit Mrs Roby and the boys. Actually, Sam was at day care so I just saw Max to begin with. Amy asked me to keep an eye on him whilst she picked up Sam. He's only 9 months old so I was a bit worried about him waking up. I eventually heard awakening noises from his direction followed by silence. That happened again. I figured he was fine but then the noises became continuous so I had to go check on him. He was pretty shocked to see a strange face and no Mum in sight. At first the shock kept him quiet but then he got a bit upset, then shocked again, then a bit upset, and then OH NO! Not happy. So I picked him up. This kept him quiet for a while but not for long. Then there was the rocking chair. That worked for a while. But then, time passing slowly, every minute an hour, his upset overcame his basic shock and he found good voice. I had an idea. He was wrapped tightly in a blanket unable to move his arm. I figured that must be the cause of some upset so endeavoured to unbundle him a bit. I had to put him back in the cot to get the blanket off and OH NO, that wasn't a popular move at all. So I picked him up again quickly and sat back down. Amy arrived, at a run, about 4 hours later (actually about 2 minutes later but it felt longer). This was perhaps the most extreme sport of the weekend. I couldnt't help note that as soon as Mum was back Max was able to look over at me with a big beaming smile on his face!

After Mum was home I was able to play with the train set with Sam, which was very much fun. It's funny to hear him talking so much these days. Counting backwards from 10 was impressive.

Sienna cooked some nice dinner later (I got more beer). After which we watched Borat (disgusting).

Saturday
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Sienna has some new skis so, after walking the dogs in the snow, we headed off to Hope Valley to try our respective skis. Sienna's were telemarks and Scott and I had the backcountry skis from Bently (Old school narrow things). We spent about 4 hours in the snow, skiing up and down. Pretty sweaty. I took way too much clothing. The snow was beautiful but was melting a bit and felt a bit like spring snow.

We went to Sorrenson's for a beer on the way back and then I visited Scott and the boys and Dave and his boys.

Scott (S) cooked some great food - a thanksgiving meal for vegans! Nice. Later we played a star wars game on the computer. Pretty neat.

Sunday
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On Sunday Sienna, Scott, Zuli, Brian, John, Dustin and Christina headed off to Owen's Valley, near Bishop, to go rock climing. The journey down there was incredible. Everything was a blanket of snow and in Bridgeport, plums of steam showed the number of hot springs in the area. It was a pretty long drive south, past Yosemite and Mammoth.

The rock climbing was a little cold - apparently it is unusual for the valley to have snow in it at all and there was quite a bit.

Routes were established and everyone encouraged up them. I managed to get halfway up a 5.7 (well, less than halfway to be honest). I wasn't happy with "trusting my feet" and standing up without a decent hand hold. The rope above me wasnt right above me so if I feel I would swing. I was pretty freaked out and by the time I was getting more confident, having hung on the rope for a rest, my arms were totally pumped to disfunction. I was pretty fed up to not get to the top. It was lovely to be out in the rocks though and to be among such competent climbers, and a nice bunch.

We got back a little late so I flew into the shower and sprinted off for the Robys for dinner. What an excellent meal Amy had made, along with an excellent Salad from Juana. We had an excellent evening. Sam made an incredibly creative station shed for his trains - I was well impressed!

Arriving back at Sienna's I had another go of Star Wars Battlefront 2 with Scott. Pretty funny.