Tahoe - Day 3

If you haven't read about days 1 and 2, may I suggest doing so before reading on...

So after another hearty breakfast, those of us who wanted to ski on Saturday decided how we were all gonna get there.   Some people didn't want to go until later, so there were seven of us that wanted to go: me, Kristen, Ray, Ali, Joel, Zack, and Maddie.  The first four on that list were sharing a vehicle and the other three didn't have their own transportation.  We decided that I'd drop the girls off first back at the side of the mountain where we were on Friday, then the four of us boys would head over and ride the gondola up and check out the other side of the mountain.   So that's just what we did.

We loaded up into the Rogue with all of our gear.  It was so full that Zach had to ride in the hatchback portion of the undersized SUV.  As we're pulling down to the edge of the driveway, a car on the road stops right in front of us and the driver starts fumbling around in the backseat.  (WARNING:  this is one of my stories that should be told in person so I can do sounds and movements, but I implore you to keep reading).  Being that we are in a huge hurry and already a little behind of where we wanted to be at that time in the day, I calmly glanced over at Ray, said "what the fuck?", glanced back at the stopped car before us, and proceeded to lay on my horn repeatedly.  The guy in the car (all by himself) looks up, startled, gives me the "what's your problem" shoulder shrug and mozies his way up the road - in the same direction we were headed.  At the light, another car got in between us, but we were still on the same course.  I thought I had forgotten all about our previous incident until the guy ended up in front of us again.  I was going to leave him alone (even though we had a good laugh at his expense the first time and this activity only eggs me on).  But then he motioned as if he was going to make a left turn out of our single lane, complete with turn signal, and pretty much fakes the left and gets back into our lane right in front of me.  Frustrated at this point, I lay on my horn once again and he responds with a middle finger perched high above a flailing arm - I guess he was pissed at this point, but I was the annoyed party here.  We made our final turn behind this guy and I was going to hammer him again because he was not going right on a red when there were clearly no cars coming, but he made the turn in time and I decided we were on a bigger mission.

We pulled into this unsuspecting strip mall where the gondola picked people up and took them up the mountain.  It was mainly for sight-seers, so it took you to this look-out and, of course, we had to ski to the next lift to take us the rest of the way to the top of the mountain.  The gondola ride was a lot of fun because we could face each other and jump around as opposed to sitting perfectly still in a row like on the chairs...  We got to the top and did our thing on the other side of the mountain for a few hours.  This new side was so much better - not only could we snowboard from California into Nevada and vice-versa, but the runs were much longer, smoother, and less crowded.  After a while, Ray wanted to bring Ali over there so she could check it out.  I went with him to get her so I could check on Kristen.  getting from where we were back to them ended up being the longest run we did that weekend, and the longest run I'd ever done in my life.  It took us a while to get down.  Ali went back up with us to the other side while Kristen took Maddie home so she could eat.   At the top we ran into Bryan, Brian, and Drew.  We all rode around on these hills for a while (I expereinced my one and only fall of the trip) and then we had to go back.  At this point, Ali was looking like Picaboo Street.  I'm not too sure, but at one point I think I saw her pull a 1080 off a big-air ramp.  Seriously, she was looking very comfortable on the mountain and by the time the lifts were shutting down, we all came down the mountain as a group - and it was awesome!  We had to take a few breaks because some of those flat runs are exhausting on a snowboard.  Kristen came to pick us up and we headed back to the house.

The rest of the evening was pretty anti-climactic.  Half of the crew went out to dinner at a restaurant and then some of them on to the casino.  The rest of us stayed in and, after a dinner consisting of the five remaining pizzas and eight of the remaining hot dogs, we watched a couple movies.  By the time some of the other guys got back from dinner (those who didn't go to the casino) we were all vegged out and some of us had dozed off.  By the time the others got back from the casino the houses were quiet as a churchmouse and everyone had gone to bed.  Couldn't tell you what happened after that.

To be concluded...