Thursday, March 9th: went to the Great Big Sea concert at Rochester’s Water Street Music Hall with Tracy Dufresne, Mark and Toni Amico. Awesome time. Best concert. Home at 12:30 am and asleep at 1:30am with 4am wake up time. Great way to start a vacation.
Friday: up at 4 am. Yuk. Lordie gave me a lift to the airport. Seat changed to 1C. First-class?? Not. Oh well. Got delayed in Philly and missed my connection in Las Vegas. No more flights to Reno that day. There were no rooms available in Las Vegas, so the airline booked me a flight to and a room in Phoenix. There were 2 flights to Phoenix that night. I opted for the later one so I could hop a taxi into Las Vegas and see the strip. Taxied to MGM ($12), walked over to Excalibur, took the tram to Mandalay Bay, walked to “The Hotel”, Luxor (pyramids), and then over to Paris. Watched SU play Georgetown in the Big East tournament and win. Mailed a postcard to my parents to see if this Paris would confuse them. (They never got it). Walked back to the MGM and grabbed a cheaper shuttle ($5) to the airport. Vegas was cold and windy. Had a short sleeve and a long sleeve shirt on and still needed the ski coat when I was outdoors. Weird for being in a desert. Drank dinner at the airport. Can’t use airline food vouchers at the bar. Good buzz on only 1 beer. First time traveling with my cell phone. Wasn’t sure if it would roam or not. Worked well. Left Randy a detailed message on his cell phone that I wouldn’t be in Reno that night; not to wait for me but to hop the shuttle and I’ll see him the following day. Little did I know that Randy was having cell phone problems and never got my message. Plus, when he tried to call my cell phone he had my old phones number. Comedy of errors. Technology doesn’t always work. Stayed at the AmeriSuites in Phoenix. Awesome room. Left a wake-up call for 6am and reserved a shuttle van ride at 6:20am. Showered and crashed. Exhausted.
Saturday: While Randy was skiing at Heavenly, I didn’t get my 6am wake up call and my alarm watch didn’t ring (watch battery die??). Did get a 6:20am hotel call saying, “Do you still want the 6:20 shuttle van to the airport. YES. Up, dressed and out in 60 seconds. Easy. Just put on last night’s clothes and go. Hate rushing. Turned out Phoenix is in Mountain Time. The airline flew me back one-time zone, so my watch was off by an hour. At least the watch worked properly. Therefore, my flight to Reno wasn’t just 50 minutes, but an hour 50 minutes. Darn. Big plus – got bumped up to first class. No mimosas. They offered a screwdriver instead. Finished my 3rd screwdriver by 9am. Landed on time in Reno. My luggage made it there ahead of me and was waiting for me in the lock-up room. Yah. Went to the counter to get someone to open up the luggage room. She commented that some guy was looking for me yesterday. A tall blond geeky loser with a bad cell phone. The lady at the South Tahoe shuttle desk switched my yesterday’s pass for today’s 10 am shuttle. She had a slight difficulty at first because she pulled up our 2005 schedule that was almost the exact same day. Spent my remaining $15 of the $20 food vouchers at the Reno snack bar. Made it to the hotel for a little downtime until Randy returned from skiing Heavenly. He was pumped up. Great tree skiing. We walked the town. Walked 1 mile to the liquor store “Dart” on the Nevada side. Cheaper. Dinner at Baha Fresh. A roasted veggie taco. Awesome. Crashed at 9:30 pm.
Sunday: Awake before the 6:30 alarm. Up, showered, dressed, and at breakfast before they opened at 7am. Hiked up to Harvey’s Casino for the Kirkwood bus. ($5). Talked to two brit couples – they were hoping to get on the bus also. Cute Asian with a snake hat on our bus. Chains were required to get to Kirkwood. Made us glad we opted not to rent a car. Skiing was powder and awesome (except for the very top of the ridge which was a white-out). We met at the main lodge lunch counter, a lady would call out your order number with her sexiest voice. Wow. Way too crowded so Bill suggested the next lodge (walking distance). Plenty of room, and (bonus) an empty table in the bar. Had a couple of Baileys and a beer at a happy hour prior to the bus ride home. Again glad we had no car. Dinner was ½ a pizza and garlic mash potatoes at Wolfgang Puck. Tired. Home and asleep at 8pm. Pitiful party animals.
Monday: Since we went to sleep so early, of course, we were up long before breakfast again. Maybe we should take a post-ski nap so we can stay up later. Off to Heavenly on the 9:12 bus. ½ hour wait in gondola line. Will be there earlier tomorrow. Fantastic tree skiing. Never skied one groomed run. Every run was in the trees. Last year we only skied groomed runs. Late lunch at 1pm hoping to miss the crowd. No such luck. Still had to wait 30 minutes in the food line and the only available seating was outdoors. Beer and burger $20. Ouch. Saw the two brit couples at lunch. Skied until the legs died and then made 2 more really last runs. Hot tub. Dinner at Fire and Ice. Bed at 9pm. Slightly better hour. Need to get on the earlier shuttle bus to avoid the long line at the gondola. Randy needs to see someone about his offensive in-room farts. Worse than Wendy last year.
Tuesday: Up before breakfast again. Bonnie was dressed in a pumpkin theme. Scary and why? Today is a powder day. Made the 8:12 bus and in line waiting for the gondola to open. Knee deep plus it would pile up to mid-thigh as you skied. It was so deep that too much forward lean and all forward motion would stop. Really tough on everyone and especially on snowboarders if they fell near the bottom of the hill before the long run-out. Randy was having so much fun that he wanted to ski straight thru and skip breaks and lunch. However, legs were good for about 4 runs and then needed a break. Love those walkie talkies. Randy and I would take slightly different runs of different degrees of steepness thru the trees and I could still feel safe skiing “alone”. Exhausted and quit at 2pm. Gondola down, bus home, change, taxied to Harvey’s, and boarded the bus back to the airport. Thought it was our 3:45 bus early, but it was the 2:45 bus that was 40 minutes late. The first bus is always the best bus. Again needed chains to return to the airport. Arrive at Randy’s house about midnight.
Wednesday: up too early at 6am. Breakfast at Pipes Café. Usual meal of splitting a #1. Checked the surf. Walkabout. Went thru Swamis. Went surfing. 57-degree water. Empty ocean. Waves died fast. Fun and exhausting. Worked too hard to be cold. Fish taco at Rosario’s, across from the LaPalma movie house. Home to rinse off body and wet suit.
Thursday: up late at 7:30am. Randy’s funky breakfast of baked Asian pears and soft cheese. Stopped by the library. Hiked up Elfin Mountain. 3-hour hike, no elves. Walked thru Balboa Park. Great coffee house – Clare de Lune. We discussed what life would be like if we both settled in Massena. Called Tracy to share our ideas. Pizza Port for pizza, beer, and SU basketball game. (Lost badly) Mega cute girls next to us drinking Pepsi- too young.
Friday: Too much of ‘the clear’ last night. Strawberry smoothie for breakfast. Drove downtown and parked near the airport. 3-hour parking limit. Biked along the Embarcadero. Took a ferry over to Coronado Island and biked around. On the return trip, the ferry stopped at the naval base to pick up passengers. There was an aircraft carrier docked nearby. High security. They had huge floating barriers around the carrier and the docks. They had to open the barrier up to let us in. All the time we were there, there was an armed patrol boat between the carrier and us. Very cold by the time we returned back to the car. Then it started raining as soon as we got back to the car and rained all night. (In San Diego??) John joined us at Randy’s for a foul weather cookout. Randy moved the grill to the slider door. Grilled Ahi Tuna, tomato salad, and grilled Asian pears with fresh nutmeg for dessert. 10pm bedtime.
Saturday: up at 7am. Great breakfast of bread, cheese, Asian pear, and another strawberry smoothie. Water was no good for surfing because of all the bacteria from the run-off. Forced us to walk the beach and town. More fish tacos for lunch. Home to read and rest (concert tonight). 3pm - hiked Torrey Pines. 6pm – wanted a bar w/ view, but realized that North County has few bars w/ ocean view. Watched sunset at Pipes Break. Clouds – bummer. Waffled on buying beers for the sunset. Home to nap. 9pm - more pizza and beer at Pizza Port. Young Dubliners concert. Met several people there who were also on the Ireland tour. Home at 1 am. Tired.
Sunday: last day. Up at usual 7am. Ahead of Randy. Not enough sleep. Maybe grab more sleep on the flight home. Surf poor plus rain again last night. (What is it with this place? Too much like Syracuse). Walked the beach. Lunch at Pipes Café (third time). Yum. Hiked Elfin Mountain again but cut short the hike so that we could enjoy the local talent in Pacific Beach. Home, showered, packed. Dinner at Crab Place in Pacific Beach. 33 shrimp – too much grease. Watched the sunset. Again no spectacular view due to clouds. Walked the beach until airport time. Lots of bars and tattoo parlors.
Monday: arrived home at 11am and Tina picked me up. My boot bag was destroyed on the return trip. Must have been stuck on a conveyor belt. It ground thru my bag, thru my ski bibs, thru some of the hard plastic of my ski boot, thru one of the metal buckles and ground off a small piece of my helmet.
