Rose and I made a last minute decision on Friday to head up to the mountains for the weekend. There were a bunch of folk going snowboarding, and the weather looked good. The original plan was to leave late on Friday night after Mark and Heather had left after dinner … but when it got to 10.30 the prospect of packing the van and driving for hours wasn’t so appealing.
We set our alarms for 0430 on Saturday morning instead, and hauled ourselves out of our bunk into the van, well before the sun was even thinking about peeking its head over the hills in the east. We were well across the causeway to Vallejo by the time the first signs of dawn were showing.
Our early start paid off and we were up at Northstar by 9am to meet Mike, Rachel, Brent and Michelle. I spent the day snowboarding while Rose hung out around the village, soaking up the sunshine and reading the papers. At first, I wasn’t sure about getting back into the whole snowboarding thing. I’d not forgotten how to snowboard, but it seems I just didn’t get the buzz from it that I used to. I wasn’t as excited about the day on the mountain as I thought I should be. The stinger of a $119 lift pass probably went some way to needing justification! How much is fun worth? Tough question.
I managed to ride quite a bit while I was in my early- and mid-twenties, then didn’t get out to the mountains in winter for many years until a trip (to Tahoe) in January last year. Since then I’ve been to the Alps once, and then again to Tahoe over Christmas just gone. None of those trips were blessed with good conditions, which meant not much fast riding, and not riding with a gang of close buddies. Hmmn. I wonder if I’ll ride again this winter. The snow looks good for next week, but for some reason I’m just not that amped for it.
Anyway, I ended up having a great day; classic spring-time snowboarding – in February! It was hot enough to spend the afternoon riding in just a T-shirt (yes, and pants/trousers). As the sun settled down over the mountains the temperature fell rapidly, Rose and I bundled back in the van and headed around the lake to see Amanda (Shane was away for the weekend). She had a load of buddies around for a “pot-luck” meal – good times hanging out with some real American folk, being educated in the culture of The History of Rap with Justin Timberlake and Jimmy Fallon.
Sunday was a day off the hill, spent checking out the east shore, south shore and a short walk up to Fallen Leaf Lake where we had a wonderful, peaceful snooze in the sun. The only thing you could hear was the gentle lapping of the lake and the wind in the fir trees. It looked like this place would be pretty busy in the summer, with docks and boats and wealthy folk hanging out in their lake-side mansions … but the road was closed and all the houses were boarded up. The only person we saw was a lone kayaker way out on the lake, towing his fishing line.
Striking colours in the winter vegetation. My phone camera and photo skills don’t really do it justice:
After exploring Emerald Bay as the sun went down, we grabbed some grub in Truckee then headed back to San Francisco after the traffic, getting back to the boat at about 11pm. Mission accomplished! It took just 3 hours each way, much faster than last time when we had 5 crew aboard and all their baggage. We only managed to get 13 miles per gallon out of the beast, even driving in super-eco mode. Ouch.
Road and Ocean 