Winter Wonderland

Part of our New Year's Resolution is to play outside more. So when our friend Nathan invited us to a weekend of skiing and gambling, we were ready to go. Well, Brian was ready to go.

I am not a skier. I tried it once...and realized that it's not for me. So a weekend ski trip didn't sound like fun to me. Yay, I get to spend all day in a lodge while everyone else is outside having fun. I decided that I'd rather stay home than go. Brian was dissappointed because he really wanted me to go....mostly because he had a comped room at the Peppermill in Reno and wanted to show me how cool it was there. We hopped online to check out Northstar...Brian wanted to show me the map of the place and where the lodge was (he tried enticing me with a day full of reading my book by the fire while sipping hot cocoa). As we were looking at the map, I saw that they had snowshoeing trails. I thought, HEY! I have snowshoes! At that point, I was onboard. My dad had got me snowshoes a couple years ago. I had only used them briefly when a few girlfriends and I went to Yosemite during the winter. But it wasn't on a trail....more like a meadow...next to a parking lot. Hardly the picturesque snowshoeing my MIL keeps telling me about. Why not really give it a try and see if I like it? If I do, then I won't have to turn down another ski trip weekend again!

Friday:

After work, we packed up Nathan's truck and headed to his cousin's house in Grass Valley.

Saturday:

We all got up early and headed out to Northstar. Well, we weren't the only ones there. We had to take a shuttle bus from the parking lot to the resort. We bought our tickets and Brian and Nathan's cousin rented their gear. Then, I had to face my fear of heights and ride the gondola up to the slopes. It actually wasn't all that bad. I didn't like going over the poles, but it wasn't that high, so I didn't freak out too much. Once we were at the lodge, Brian, Nathan and his cousin went one way, and Nathan's cousin's wife and I went another. I got a trail map and mapped out our journey.

The original intention was to hike to the Tahoe Lake viewpoint. About halfway is a little caboose that has a little camping stove and a box of hot cocoa packets. We stopped and made some hot cocoa and gagued whether or not we had time and energy to make it the whole way. We were feeling pretty good and decided that we'll try and make it. But shortly after we left the caboose, my partner started cramping. We decided that we should shorten our trip and just do a little trail loop and head back. Well, it was a good thing we did. Snowshoeing is much harder than just hiking. All in all, we hiked about 4 miles round trip. That 4 miles felt like 8. Had we hiked all the way to the Tahoe Lake viewpoint, we would have really hiked 8 miles. If 4 miles felt like 8, 8 miles would have felt like 16. And I was feeling every last step as we were heading back to the beginning. The only downfall was that my asthma started acting up. I think the combination of the higher elevation, the dry, cold air and the strenuous exercise caused it. It didn't go away until today...Monday. After 5 years of not having an inhaler, I needed one. Oh well, I just took a lot of hot showers and baths.
We met back up with the guys....only to find out that 2 of the 3 were injured. Nathan had mistakenly taken a huge jump and fell about 8 ft. He had some scrapes and bruises. Nathan's cousin had fell and had ripped a muscle in his calf. He was limping pretty bad....and his pain tolerance is about zero, so it must have been pretty bad. Brian, however, escaped the carnage. Despite the injuries, we all had a great time. I'll definately be snowshoeing again!

We left Northstar and headed to Reno. Brian and Nathan had gone gambling a while ago and had earned some room comps at the Peppermill. We were going to meet up with more of Nathan's family. Brian told me their rooms were nice, but I never expected them to be THIS nice. I mean, there was a tv in the bathroom, dual showerheads and 1,000 count sheets. The best part? Our room was free because of Brian's comps.

After we got cleaned up, we went downstairs and hit the tables. We all stayed out late and we all lost money. But we had fun doing it.

Sunday:

Apparently some people in our group had way too much fun the night before and were hung over. So Brian, Nathan and I headed home after we checked out. We stopped at Cabela's near Boomtown (can you say Hunter's Paradise??). They had so many dead animals in there, it was like I was in the woods. It was kind of creepy actually. We jumped back in the car and preceeded to drive home....for about 4 hrs. And as soon as we got home, we pretty much threw our things down and went straight to bed.

What an awesome weekend!!