Hey! Blogging from the car at the moment, zipping down from our weekend in the mountains

Except for a teeny tiny dusting of snow Saturday morning (and I’m talking tiny, didn’t even stick), all the snow up there had melted already! It’s been the driest year in 100 years! Crazy not to see any snow. Still beautiful though

Squaw Valley, the ski resort, is open through next weekend so Jared skied for a few hours each day and I mostly hung around the cabin and explored the woods outside with Charlie (he thinks Tahoe is the most amazing smelling place in the whole world). He sported a cute parka

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I only took random photos this weekend, but here's a sprinkling of what we did…

Saturday morning- love waking up in the cabin. It's just nice to have a house instead of a tiny city apartment!

I brought this juice from home to try and am now officially addicted!

Have you ever seen it or tried it? Love the ingredients.

Charlie met a bear. They became bestest friends.

I read about a Natural Foods market near the cabin and convinced Jared to take me.

The juice bar rocked.

So I got one, of course. And drank it en route to an afternoon hike.

We hiked about 4 miles up along Donner Ridge. It was half snow, half dirt…true spring.

One of my only pics of me this wknd

We spent a cozy night in the cabin hanging out with friends and hot tubbing.

This morning, we ventured back to Squaw and Charlie and I hung out while Jared skied for a couple hours.

The only photos I took were hanging out by the fire pit…

And eating lunch. We had to sit outside because of the dog, but it was too cold! Note to self, if you sit outside in the cold, don’t drink ice water and order a cold salad! What was I thinking?!?

And that’s about it…it was a lazy, hanging w the dog kinda weekend. I feel rested and ready to conquer the week– Bring it on Monday!

– Any good juice bars near you?
– If the weather’s decent but not amazing, would you still rather sit outside at a restaurant or go inside?
– do you dress your dog in jackets and sweatshirts? I usually don’t, but couldn’t resist this wknd and besides, thought he would be cold.

Ahhh, don’t you just live three-day weekends? On Saturday, Jared, Charlie, our friend Keren and I packed up the car and headed up to Tahoe for a long weekend in the snow!

The drive took a while, but we finally got to the cabin around 2pm.

Jared gets a ski house share every year with 10 or so friends…so basically the cabin is ours January through April. It is so much fun! Because it’s a share, you never know who is going to be in the cabin (well they usually email each other, but…), but it’s usually 5-10 and always so cozy to hang out.

This was a different house than last year, but they did a great job choosing! It is huge! Plus, there’s a hot tub outside surrounded by pretty trees AND a ping ping and pool table. Score!!

Inside, it’s very cozy and cabin-y

There were about 8 people up this weekend so we just spent the rest of Saturday hanging out with everyone, taking a long walk through the neighborhood, hot tubbing, and making dinner. It’s almost 40 degrees during the day so really nice.

Sunday morning, we woke up early. Someone had already made coffee (yeah!)

Made breakfast…simple, but good.

And then we watched the inauguration while I did wedding stuff

Until we got a group together for a hike! Everyone usually spends the day skiing, but holiday weekends are blackout weekends for people with season passers, Jared still can’t ski because of his shoulder, and most importantly…we ALL wanted to be home by noon for the 49er game!

We went to Donner Memorial State Park (remember the story of the Donner Party?)

It was beautiful and Charlie was in heaven! He looooves the snow

We got home around 12:30. Perfect time for the game! I was soo hungry for lunch…put together a random assortment that was really good

We spent the afternoon watching football (8 of us), chillaxing, and playing ball with Charlie. He enjoyed all the attention and took full advantage of it!

After the intense game- I was freaking out during the last 10 minutes…holy cow, I still can’t believe they won!!! The giants won the World Series and now the 49ers are going to the Superbowl?!?! Best year ever for SF!!– Jared and I went to the gym at the complex (for all the houses in this development). It’s really nice. There’s a pool, hot tub, and nice workout space. We just worked out for an hour.

My favorite part about it is that you stare out to the snowy mountains while on the treadmill. Def can’t do that at home!

The evening consisted of dinner, more hanging out, more hot tub, more dog walks, and a rousing game of ping ping. The only thing I took photos of was dinner…

But I bet you can use your imagination for the rest. I went to sleep early- 9:45…I think the cold air and altitude makes me extra sleepy.

Now it’s Monday morning…we’ve been lazy just drinking coffee, watching the inauguration, doing casual yoga…and figuring out what to do for the next few hours before we head home….

How about you?
-Ski, snowboard, or cross country?
-Ping ping or pool?
-Who are you rooting for in the Super Bowl?(don’t worry, I’ll still like you if you say the Ravens)
-What’d you do this weekend?

On Friday, Jared and I were planning to go to Tahoe for our last ski weekend of the season.  As I mentioned in just about every  post last week, it’s been raining HARD around here.  And of course, Rain in SF = Lots of Snow in Tahoe.  We knew it was going to be a slow drive up, so we both took a half day of work and left the city at 3pm.  It normally takes 4 hours to get to the cabin.

6 hours
4 random gas station bathroom stops
and
1 surprisingly tasty McDonald’s salad later……

It was 9pm and we were JUST reaching the base of the mountain.  It was raining hard the whole drive and had quickly gotten dark.  At our dinner drive-through stop, we thought about turning back, a little intimidated how our little two-door car was going to handle the upcoming snow, but decided we wanted to go and trudged on.

Half an hour later, the rain turned to slush—big, drops of slush– and the roads were slipperly.  And then the slush turned to snow.  On the already dark, curvy highway, the power was out and it was pitch black.  The headlights were shining into the snowflakes and instead of making it easier to see, it was almost blinding.  We couldn’t see the lane lines either.

We were going only 20 miles an hour…..and still had another 20 miles before chain control kicked in so we felt like we were going to slide all over…..and even after that, we still had 60 miles to go.

I know all you mid-western and east coasters are probably thinking we’re babies for being freaked out of snow, but let’s just say….it’s a windy, curvy, dark, mountain road and def not salted or cleared.  And yes, we’re Californian and Floridian and def not used to driving in snow!

So after only 5 minutes of it, we both looked at each other and said, “let’s turn around.”  I think I held my breath on the ride back.  I should have taken photos, but frankly, I thought the car ride was going to be the least eventful part of the weekend and so wasn’t even thinking about it.

Though I did think to take this random photo. lol

With Jared’s trust hotel.com app, I looked up hotels in the area and we found one sort of close by in Grass Valley.  So Tahoe/snow/ski trip aborted……and off to an old-west gold mining town we went.

It was after 10pm by the time we got to the hotel….over 7 hours in the car and we were more than ready to relax.  Turned into a spontaneous weekend trip!

We woke up the next morning to our free hotel breakfast.  I absolutely love breakfast in the hotels.  I have no idea why (and Jared thinks I’m crazy), but something about it all being free and so cozy, I just love it.

French toast station (aka, what Jared ate)

I had oatmeal with half a banana and two cups of coffee.  Plus a glass of oj.

The weather seemed better and we considered trying to go back up the mountain now that it was light out, but realized we would have gotten into the same issues coming home on Sunday (which was when the worst snowstorm was going to hit), so decided that staying was a better option.  So off to sightseeing we went!

We started at the Empire State Park, which is one of the oldest gold mines in California, established in 1850.  It was a huge gold mine back then and now a preserved state park.  They have a little museum and you can walk around and see how everything worked, even go down into the mines.  Really interesting and such a big part of California history.

The mines

Really pretty grounds

Where they weighed the gold

The "cottage" (aka, house of the guy who owned the mine)

We went down into the mines

Jared on the track that took the miners underground every morning. Geez, what a dangerous life that way

After our mine tour, we went to the little town of Grass Valley and walked around.  It looks just like an old west town. 

There’s the oldest hotel in California (filled with Mark Twain stuff), and cute little shops and restaurants.  It’s nice to find a town nowadays with no chain-stores.

We had lunch at Main Street Cafe & Bar, which turned out to be SUCH a great choice.  It’s Mediterranean and was really cute inside.

We had the best waiter.  And we both loved our meals.

I got a grilled chicken salad with buckwheat noodles and a peanut dressing on the side.  It was delicious.

After lunch, we drove over to the neighboring town, Nevada City (yes, randomly Nevada City and Nevada County are in California….not Nevada).  It’s also a historic gold rush town and slightly bigger than Grass Valley.

It’s adorable—and my kind of town—there were 4 ice cream and candy shops within 4 blocks!  We stopped for hot cocoa and goodies at the candy shop.  I got a caramel and dark chocolate dipped marshmallow.  It was AMAZING!  Sorry, my pics of it didn’t come out.

And then, we started the drive home, which luckily only took 2.5 hours.  We  made bbq chicken pizza (recipe tomorrow!) for dinner and hung out on the couch watching Hancock (Will Smith is so great) and Outbreak on tv.

We were going to grab drinks for St. Patty’s day…..but as happens a lot lately, it was super late before we knew it and so we nixed our plan.  We turned off the tv and played cards instead.  I lost and am still mad about it!  Now it’s Sunday and I must say, it’s been sooo nice to have the whole day with nothing planned (went swimming, caught up with long-distance friends on the phone, cleaned my whole apartment, and did a kajillion errands– feel so productive!).

Anyways, so that’s the story of how my ski cabin weekend in Tahoe turned into a random hotel-gold mining-old-west trip instead.  Random!

Do you like hotel breakfasts too or am I the only one?
Have you ever changed plans mid-trip before?
Any green beer for st patty’s day?

Hola, Happy Monday.  Good weekend, everyone?

Tahoe was really nice.  It snowed all last week, but it was in the 60s all weekend– meaning skiing in t-shirts (or many with no shirts!) and a tan.  Also meant 13 people in a 3 bdrm cabin and crowded slopes (ran into a handful of people I knew- love that!)

Instead of telling you what we did, thought I’d just show you.  I didn’t take too many pics, but enough for some highlights.

Left Friday after work.  Stopped in a small town for the most random Texas bbq.  It was totally random…..and really fun.

Best bbq was an overstatment, but this was the vibe of the place, lol

Yes, I went to a bbq place and didn't get any meat.....sorry to disappoint. This sounded better to me (and it was awesome)

Luckily, I was eating with two meat-eating guys

Bathroom pic.  Full length mirror, couldn’t resist.

Saturday morning SKIIING

Awwww, prettiness

Lunch in the lodge.  Notice the 6 glasses of water in the background.  Yes, I drank them all!

Few more hours of skiing and then Post Skiing Beers.  Ahhhhh, yes please!

Breakfast Sunday morning in the cabin.  Always an event when 13 people are there.

These got eaten in less than 12 hours

Rules for breakfast: Sit where ever you can find space. Drink as much coffee as possible. Laugh.

More skiiiiiiing.

Lunch #2.  Healthy food, I was impressed.  It’s a vegie/tofu/chicken stirfry.

Post-ski Fro yo, of course.  I only ate a little because it actually wasn’t very good.

Left the resort at 5pm, went back to the cabin to shower and eat a quick dinner, started home around 6:30.  Busy day!

Long drive meant we had to stop for ice cream at the halfway point, of course.

Would you believe it was my FIRST Dairy Queen experience?  Oreo blizzard.  Not impressed, unfortunately.  One bit.  Not very good.  Sorry to offend anyone who loves it there

And then back home at 10:30…….and asleep by 11!

Come on weather, SNOW MORE so we can go skiing again!

Do you like Blizzards or Dairy Queen Ice Cream?
AND I know people in NY do Hamptons houses, Michigan gets leases at the Lake, Boston at Cape Cod, and SF does Tahoe ski cabins……What do they do in your area?   

Despite the sunny, blue skies out my window

My car is filled with these

Goggles and warm jackets have been pulled out of storage

Healthy food/ everything I didn’t want to leave in my fridge…..is all packed up

It’s time for a Tahoe weekend!

Leaving later tonight. It’s been snowing up there all week (finally!) so should be jam packed on the slopes but a blast.

Whoo hoo! Fun stuff.

Who’s been skiing this year?