Day 18: Heavenly again

I wake up and am warm.  I find this quite exciting after a lot of cold mornings.  I then realize that I am congested and achy.  Great.  I am not getting sick.  I refuse.  I go back to sleep for a little longer.  I wake up again around 8:30 and decide I should get up. 

I am in no hurry to get to the ski hill since I am sore from yesterday.  I have found bruises all over myself; hand, arms, legs, and somehow one on the bottom of my foot.  I go to make some breakfast; fried eggs on toast.  I would usually add cheese but as mentioned before, they did not have any.  Frying the eggs proved to be a problem since I had no butter, pam, cooking oil, or anything else to fry them in.  I have a Costco package of cashews and remember that they are very oily.  So I take a couple of cashews and rub them all over the pan.  Hopefully this will work.  I fry my eggs. The cashew oil seems to work OK.  The eggs don't stick to the pan.  Excellent. 

I eat my breakfast and turn on the TV.  The travel channel is on.  I watch a program about exotic beach houses.  I want to go to the beach!  I turn on my computer and do some research on my next destinations. I am thinking about skiing and remember my favorite Olympic skier (who also happens to share my birthday!! Awesomeness!), Picabo Street.  I thought her name was awesome when I was 6.  Well, I guess I still think that. I remember that there is a run named after her at some ski resort somewhere.  I decide to do some research on the matter.  It is at Sun Valley in Idaho. Guess where I have to go now? At this point, the travel channel starts playing a show about Alaska.  Hmmm, I will add that to my list of places to go! Ha! Around noon, I figure it is time to head to the ski hill.  I get my gear on and head outside.  I decide to drive to the ski lift to avoid walking up the hill again.  In order to do this, I must clear 2 feet of very wet snow off my truck.  It is about 40 degrees out so everything is melting.  It takes about 15 minutes to get all the snow off.  I head to the hill.
I pull out my Scott Skis.  I love the skis. They do everything other than extreme powder.  They are super light and maneuverable.  I can do park (though I rarely do I am too scared I am going to hurt myself), groomers, mougles, light/medium powder, and ice if needed with them. The weather is clear today and the view is beautiful. I can see both Carson Valley and Lake Tahoe from the mountain.  Unfortunately, the upper part of the mountain (elevation 10,000+ feet) is foggy.  The snow is not as quite awesome as yesterday. It is pretty tracked up and wet.  I still find a few untracked areas to enjoy throughout the day.  Despite the snow not being perfect, it is still a good time.

Awesome skis!!!

I take the lifts up as high as I can on the Nevada side and then head over to explore the California side of the mountain.  I had a blast skiing yesterday but I have not found the mountain too challenging.  There are only a handful of black diamonds open and I am unable to find any open double blacks. I check my map and find multiple double black runs at the foot of the mountain.  I decide to do a run from the very top to the very bottom of the mountain.  This run is several miles long.  I make it all the way down to the top of the double black runs.  "Closed due to avalanche danger"  Damn.  I head back up the hill.  I reach the top and am met with high winds and intense fog.  It is about 3 and lifts start closing sometime between 4 and 5. I have to use the lifts to get back to the Nevada side and I do not want to have another shuttle bus adventure today.  So, I make my way back to Nevada.  It is just as foggy and windy over there so I head back to the Stagecoach lift.  It is right by my truck so I won't get stranded and there are some fun runs over there.  I make the last lift and have an awesome run through some mostly untracked snow.  (it's too wet to really call powder)

Nice View!

Still some untracked areas

The Cali side!

Kinda hard to ski in this...

I head to my truck and pack up.  I turn out of the parking lot and end up in a maze of condos.  This is not Tramway drive.  I finally loop around and make it back to the road.  I make it back to my place and have a lot of fun parking in the tight parking lot.  I really want a cheeseburger.  I shower put on normal clothes.  I walk outside and see a beautiful sunset over lake Tahoe. I get back in my truck and drive a quarter mile to a restaurant.  (the hill is that bad. Besides, it is almost dark and I don't want to get run over)  I walk in and there are no available seats at the bar and no booths.  I end up sitting at a high table in the middle of the place.  Since I am by myself I feel very weird about this.  They have a cheeseburger eating challenge and I consider taking it. I look at it in detail and it seems to require eating a pizza, cheeseburger/teriaki burger/philly all combined into one, chicken wings, and something else.  Ok, I am hungry but that is a little extreme.  I look at their burger menu. I can't find a normal burger.  I see a peanutbutter, egg, and pickles cheeseburger.  Well I like all of those things, let's try it.  It isn't bad but I think the peanutbutter overpowered all of the other tastes a little too much.  Oh well, it is good to try new things and it certainly was not bad. 

Sunset over Tahoe!

I drive back to my condo thing and again have a blast trying to park my truck.  I am really happy I have not hit anything. Yet.  So I am now blogging and watching Game of Thrones. 

Tomorrow I think I am going to head to Squaw valley for some afternoon skiing.  Since it was the place of the 1960 Olympics, I feel I should pay it a visit.  I want to go sooner rather than later in hopes that the snow won't be too tracked up! 

I felt super cool taking pictures of myself but oh well.