Last ski of the season
My illness last week turned out to be proper, full-blown flu. I had a miserable day on the Saturday. I was panicked and tried to get to see a doctor, but could only get an appointment if I was prepared to pay $300 (not covered on my insurance). I decided to sit it out.
Jon got home on Saturday evening and cheered me up greatly. I started to improve on Sunday morning, and managed a walk down to the beach, then on the sealions and finally to an ice-cream parlour in North Beach. It was a beautiful day – if I hadn’t been sick, I’d have been in the pool for sure!
I kept on improving through the week. On Monday I managed to go to an Eels concert (fortunately, it was sit-down), then on Tuesday to Spanish class. On Wednesday and Thursday we had visitors – my friend Charlotte from my PGCE course, who was on her honeymoon! And her husband, of course. We went out both nights – firstly to a local Italian, then on Thursday to Chinese (in Chinatown), followed by a drink at my favourite bar, Vesuvio.
Having made it to the end of the week, it was time to head up to Tahoe for the last ski of the season. This time there were just three of us: me, Jon and Tom (from Jon’s work). It was very windy on Saturday, so not many lifts were open. As it’s the end of the season, it was really quiet on the slopes, which meant there were no lift lines, so I’m afraid we soon got a bit bored with doing the same couple of runs over and over again. Add to this the fact that the lower parts of the slope were very slushy, and therefore difficult to ski on, and we were ready to finish early. However, we made the most of the day by heading out on a little drive to lovely Emerald Bay, home to Lake Tahoe’s only island, which is were some rich woman inspired by Norwegian castles built her tea-house many years ago. We walked down to the beach and took photos of this lovely spot, before heading back to South Lake Tahoe.
We ended up eating at Fire & Ice, a “Mongolian wok” style place, where you pick all your raw food, then have it cooked before your eyes on a huge hot plate, while the chefs do cheesy entertainment numbers, juggling spatulas and the like. It was good fun, and certainly a great feast. There’s no way we’d ever be able to get in there at high season without a wait of several hours, so it was a good time to go. Afterwards, we went for a drink in Montbleu Casino (the casinos never fail to strike me as very weird places!) and then set off on a very cold walk back to the motel in the icy wind.
Today, in spite of the prevailing winds, nearly all the lifts were open, so we boarded the Heavenly gondola and were swept up to the slopes for a great day. Again, it was very quiet, with no lift lines, so we did a huge amount of skiing (my sore calves are evidence of this!), including the Olympic Downhill twice. In the afternoon, we headed down the black run I did the last weekend I was in Tahoe, but this time it was really icy. However, feeling more confident after my lesson in March, I made it down just fine. It was a really cold day, though, which made for crunchy snow (still, that’s better than slushy!), and at one point Jon’s beard and moustache iced up!
Jon got home on Saturday evening and cheered me up greatly. I started to improve on Sunday morning, and managed a walk down to the beach, then on the sealions and finally to an ice-cream parlour in North Beach. It was a beautiful day – if I hadn’t been sick, I’d have been in the pool for sure!
I kept on improving through the week. On Monday I managed to go to an Eels concert (fortunately, it was sit-down), then on Tuesday to Spanish class. On Wednesday and Thursday we had visitors – my friend Charlotte from my PGCE course, who was on her honeymoon! And her husband, of course. We went out both nights – firstly to a local Italian, then on Thursday to Chinese (in Chinatown), followed by a drink at my favourite bar, Vesuvio.
Having made it to the end of the week, it was time to head up to Tahoe for the last ski of the season. This time there were just three of us: me, Jon and Tom (from Jon’s work). It was very windy on Saturday, so not many lifts were open. As it’s the end of the season, it was really quiet on the slopes, which meant there were no lift lines, so I’m afraid we soon got a bit bored with doing the same couple of runs over and over again. Add to this the fact that the lower parts of the slope were very slushy, and therefore difficult to ski on, and we were ready to finish early. However, we made the most of the day by heading out on a little drive to lovely Emerald Bay, home to Lake Tahoe’s only island, which is were some rich woman inspired by Norwegian castles built her tea-house many years ago. We walked down to the beach and took photos of this lovely spot, before heading back to South Lake Tahoe.
We ended up eating at Fire & Ice, a “Mongolian wok” style place, where you pick all your raw food, then have it cooked before your eyes on a huge hot plate, while the chefs do cheesy entertainment numbers, juggling spatulas and the like. It was good fun, and certainly a great feast. There’s no way we’d ever be able to get in there at high season without a wait of several hours, so it was a good time to go. Afterwards, we went for a drink in Montbleu Casino (the casinos never fail to strike me as very weird places!) and then set off on a very cold walk back to the motel in the icy wind.
Today, in spite of the prevailing winds, nearly all the lifts were open, so we boarded the Heavenly gondola and were swept up to the slopes for a great day. Again, it was very quiet, with no lift lines, so we did a huge amount of skiing (my sore calves are evidence of this!), including the Olympic Downhill twice. In the afternoon, we headed down the black run I did the last weekend I was in Tahoe, but this time it was really icy. However, feeling more confident after my lesson in March, I made it down just fine. It was a really cold day, though, which made for crunchy snow (still, that’s better than slushy!), and at one point Jon’s beard and moustache iced up!
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