Tahoe - Day 2

I guess this is how this story is gonna go (by day). If you haven't read part I yet, scroll down and read it first.

So a couple times during night #1 Ray and I were talking back and forth about them possibly getting a rental car in Reno and driving down on the morning of day 2. He was not having luck getting the same deal we got through the hook-up, so I agreed to pick them up. Kristen and I woke up early, not even requiring an alarm clock (when on vacation, I always feel that I can sleep when I get home, so this isn't much of an issue for me). We made ourselves breakfast - I had a hearty bacon and eggs... hey, gotta get that protein for a wicked day on the slopes! While I was cooking I noticed that a bedroom door down the hall cracked open... I didn't think much of it because I didn't see anyone come out. The floor plan of this house was pretty open, so from the kitchen I could see directly down the hall to the bedroom door. This was Tony and Anna's room. I came to find out later from Tony that it was him who got up, to go to the bathroom, but it was the smell of bacon that awoke him. He was jokingly upset with me for not making him any, so I explained to him that I gladly would have had he shown his face in that instance.

So Kristen and I left to head back to Reno. We successfully found Ray and Ali at the airport and immediately congratulated them in person on their engagement. We packed up the Rogue and were off to Tahoe.. again. We arrived back at the house and everyone was already gone :(. Thanks for waiting for us to hit the slopes, guys. Funny thing is, I didn't even tell anyone we were leaving to go pick them up since Ray and I had made the decision so late at night, so they really weren't 100% sure where I was.. haha. It was all good though and after unpacking their luggage we quickly got ready and headed to the ski shop to get some rentals for Kristen and Ali. This was a pretty smooth adventure.

We made it to the mountain at about 11:30am, got our lift tickets and hit the bunny slopes. I have been snowboarding for 10 years, but since this was my first time at this big of a place, I decided to get my footing (or boarding) to a comfortable level by hitting the easy slopes.... "greens" they're called in the industry. It was just as I expected, like riding a bike. I quickly got into my rhythm and decided to help Kristen learn how to ski, which is ironic considering I have never snow skied a day in my life. She was catching on rather quickly, really. A few minor falls, no big collisions. She did almost hit a tree which I documented in a photograph that can be found in my facebook album. Ray and I felt pretty comfortable about leaving the girls on the bunny hill, so that's exactly what we did. This was after I took off half my clothes because I was so damn hot - it was 45 degrees there and I was dressed as if embarking on an arctic adventure!

It was at this point that we met up with some of the other guys and headed up the 4-person chair lift to the first stop up the mountain. The cool thing about the mountains is that there are many slopes and levels at all altitudes, so we would ride up a lift to about 1/3 the way up, ski down a minute or so to another lift and ride that up even further and repeat this process until we made it to the summit. We cruised around one side of the mountain the majority of the day. Some of the girls (not Kristen :)) joined us at the top and we proceeded to make our way down. We had to leave Zach behind because he decided he'd be a gentleman and walk with Maddie down the mountain because she was too afraid to ski - yes, they WALKED 3,500 feet vertical drop and god knows how much laterally to get down this damn mountain. All of this when Zach is one of the better snowboarders I've seen - he was kinda pissed. The day on the slopes ended with everyone slowly heading back to the house except me, Ray and Ali. Kristen caught a ride with the rest of the group. Ray wanted to give Ali a taste of the whole enchilada by taking her to the top and riding down beside her. Well, they didn't walk down but they came down really slowly and it took about an hour for them to get down.... all while I was waiting at the bottom contemplating whether or not to call ski patrol because the resort had stopped operating the lifts and those two were the absolute LAST people on that mountain. They finally arrived and we headed back to the house.

I was dying for some grub so I had them throw me in a pizza while they were already preparing a pasta dinner. Everyone chipped in and we cleaned out some food. It was now onto game time! We started with a fun board-less trivia board game called "Catchphrase". Look it up if you don't know what it is. We split into teams and the hilarity ensued. It was fun, but then someone went to bed so the teams were uneven and we had to move on to drinking games - damn the luck! We played circle-of-death and the most fun part about this game is when someone draws a specific couple of cards they get to create rules and whoever breaks that rule has to drink. The most laughter (and me subsequently losing my voice) came from Shannon who could not grasp the rules concept and was forced to drink repeatedly. You see, the rule usually involved a ritual you had to perform after taking a drink... well, Drew and I got to the point where we would wait like we were stalking prey for Shannon to take a drink and not observe the ritual. As soon as she broke the rule, we screamed "DRINK!!!" When she took that drink she failed again to perform the ritual and so this vicious cycle went on and on and we laughed and drank and carried on until the wee hours of the morning.

It is worthy of note before you hear it from someone else that while we were all playing, Maddie and Zach were in the hot tub getting annihilated and at one point Maddie came inside and was SO drunk and obnoxious that Shannon actually locked her back outside for a few minutes... haha! It's all good though because she was on vacation and that is what you're supposed to do, so there was really no harm done.

Then we all went to bed (at least I did).

To be continued...