Sunday, March 27, 2011

Oh Well

Seattle - Reno - Tahoe

Where to begin? This was an interesting trip, almost nothing went as planned. It started out great with free snacks and drinks in the Alaska boardroom at the Seattle airport, followed by an almost on time departure, and a beautiful snowy landing in Reno. I thought everything was going to be perfect, I had booked us a cheap night in a casino (neither of us had ever gambled) and a free shuttle the next morning to Northstar, where we would spend our first day in Tahoe snowboarding. Sounds perfect, huh?

The theme for the weekend is the title of this post "Oh Well"

The casino was nice all but smoking was allowed, yuck! "Oh well" We played the slots, had greasy food, and won about $16.

We woke up around 6:30 to catch our awesome free shuttle, which would have been awesome if they didn't cancel the route for the day because of road closures and bad conditions. Oh yea, and they didn't cancel until we were well on our way. That's right..... bags packed on the bus, had an orange to eat, and had picked up all the people at the many stops when our driver says dispatch just called and has canceled our trip we will be turning around. So now what? "Oh well"

We had already checked out of our hotel...so what else to do besides go to breakfast (at our hotel because that is where we were dropped off at), get on the internet, and find alternative transportation. We called every rental car company looking for an AWD vehicle because that was a road restriction we had to compile with, we called all the bus companies we could find online, and looked at all train routes. The results: few AWD rentals that were a little pricey, all trains canceled for the day, and it seemed like all bus companies were canceling their routes as well.

This was almost the end of hope, we were thinking about charting a helicopter! Why not at this point, it would at least be pretty. We finally got through to the last bus company after many many many calls ending with a busy signal and what do you know, they had a bus departing that afternoon. We called the hotel reservation desk from the hotel restaurant to ask if we could have our room back and a late check out time AND they said yes....things were looking a little brighter! So to the room we went to indulge in a 2 hour much needed nap, remember it is only 9 am. We had missed a day of snowboarding and our free transportation but oh well.

After waking up and having some lunch, we were off to catch our ride to the airport where we were going to catch our shuttle to Tahoe. Our ride to the airport would have been free but oh well (we missed our free ride, I am not going to go into this story as it only lengthens the story without making it better), we ended up in a taxi. We made it to the airport and hopped in the packed shuttle (WE HAD A RIDE!!).

We arrived in Truckee, a small town outside of Tahoe, 45 minutes later. Our friends weren't going to be in Truckee for another 3 hours to pick us up so what else to do besides go to the bar and not just any bar BUT the Tourist Club Bar aka the T Club. This is where we met Chris, a snow bum from Wisconsin. He was a super nice guy, he even bought us a round of shots. What a day!

After drinks, we needed more food so we headed to a highly recommended by almost everyone in the T Club sushi place called, Dragonfly. Where we met Jason, the manager, and Dave and Rio, the sushi chefs. This place was delicious, I think we had 6 rolls! And 1 of those was on the house, this goes to show that people are genuinely nice. I love meeting people! We also met some local retirees. Dave, the head sushi chef recommended we go down the street to Moody's for dessert. He recommended their s'mores. So off we went...I have failed to mention this whole time we are transporting our luggage (which consists of 3 suitcases, 2 smaller bags, and 2 snowboards) to and from each venue.

Oh my, was Moody's s'mores absolutely amazing! I think this was a perfect ending to a not so grand day :)

After a few cocktails at Moody's, our ride was finally there to pick us up....to be continued



Friday, March 18, 2011

St Patty's Day

What did you do?

HG, Hillary, Teresa, and I shared laughs and talked about education, access, homelessness, wedding plans/sites, the bachelor, scarcity, plastic surgery and our good bodies...We managed to cover all these topics in a few hours in our PJ's and it was marvelous!

We also watched an Irish movie, Waking Ned Divine, while eating soda bread, popcorn with Irish butter, and drinking Irish wine. I would suggest the movie to everyone, it was super cute and funny :)

I am blessed to have such amazing women in my life!


HG and Duncan

Monday, March 14, 2011

Where do the days go?

It's halfway through March and not one post from a certain someone, yikes. An example of how busy we are...it's snowboard season and we have been 2x :(

Last weekend we celebrated Joel's birthday at a very nerdy bar. What's a "nerdy" bar you ask? It's a place that is setup with every console you can name, computers, board games, cards, and you can even bring your own games....oh yeah and it has a bar! It is called AFK Tavern, this is gamer talk for "Away for Keyboard". I had a good time and Davis had a great time :)

Sunday we had football practice for an event that was canceled because of the NFL lockout, we were suppose to play on Quest field...bummer!! After practice we indulged in pho at The Green Leaf and headed home for a much needed nap.

This past weekend...was a pretty relaxed one for us. Friday night we went out for Thai and watched a movie on the sofa. Saturday night we went out for a drink before heading to Freddo's for game night and Davis hit the airport at 5:30am Sunday morning for Long Island while I slept in of course.

This week is St. Patty's Day, don't forget to wear your green and drink a pint :)