Drive Me to Northstar

On March 24, I wrote that the day before my sister and brother-in-law showed up at around four and we had cheese and crackers and cocktails. My friend and I had been playing cards. The tri-tip was delicious as were the salad and potatoes. My sister and our hostess talked a lot. They had both gone to UC Berkeley and her family was near ours growing up.

After the meal we chatted for a bit and when my brother-in-law and sister left there was a bit of snow. The three of us agreed to watch the Star Trek reboot movie which turned out to be pretty good. I went to sleep early.

When we got up at 9:30, I accepted my friend’s gracious offer to drive me to Northstar and we made plans to meet after she went snowshoeing at the end of the ski day.

At the rental shop, getting set up, I opted for a half-day on the slopes. I decided to put my boots in a locker because during my previous visit to Northstar my shoes inexplicably disappeared. I sat for coffee at Vous, which used to be called Starbucks even though place hadn’t changed at all in the intervening period.

I adjusted my boots and then I went and caught the gondola to the middle of the mountain. Then I went as far as possible to Mount Pluto on the express which kept stopping, much to everyone’s consternation.

I went down a black diamond to find the cat track on the next rides. I took three blues The Islands, Castle Peak and Drifter to find as much as I could of Backdoor the lower cat track. I had an Irish coffee in the middle of one of those runs. Made a few good rides and a bunch of nice turns. I find that the turns are better when the snow is fluffy white – much more forgiving. There was hail at the end of the day.

By then my friend had messaged that she was getting ready to meet me. So, I got one more ride in on the backside and arranged to meet her at the bottom. The ride on the front of the resort to stagecoach was rough but fun. I dumped the skis and walked to meet my friend for a drink before we returned to the house where I took a nap.

We had made soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner before watching TV.

This is an occasional series chronicling my life. This Notebook Analysis series is meant to be contemporaneous piece developed as an agglomeration of my notebook pages. In each of these posts I used my notes to develop my recent thoughts.

Lake Effect

On March 23, I wrote that the night before our host had made us salmon with my friend’s help. I thought the meal was delicious. They did everything. I was downstairs for a little bit but later we sat through a movie until midnight. I went to bed a little late.

We were up at 9:30 and I made coffee and we ate French toast. I ate a lot. My friend and I went to Safeway when the snow stopped falling and the day had warmed up. The roads were clear enough as we drove to into town. We walked along the Lakeside. The weather was kind of like the Lake Effect in Buffalo. There was a bit of snow falling as we shopped.

We drove back to the house. I noted that my older sister would be visiting to eat dinner with us. Our hostess was making tri-tip. We were watching women’s basketball.

This is an occasional series chronicling my life. This Notebook Analysis series is meant to be contemporaneous piece developed as an agglomeration of my notebook pages. In each of these posts I used my notes to develop my recent thoughts.

Kings Beach

On March 22, 2024, I wrote that the previous Wednesday my friend called to say we needed to change our plans because the hostess for our trip to Tahoe was having car problems.

Later we spoke on the phone and agreed that we would drive her car to Martinez. So, I made a train ticket for us to leave from Martinez. After that, I tidied the apartment and ran errands and checked in on work ahead of my vacation. After that, I packed and headed over to my friend’s house. She and I went out to an Indian food place and a bar on Haight before stopping by the grocery store to get a couple of items

I slept well enough and the next morning we headed out at 7:45 and drove to Martinez where we dropped the car off at our hostess’ house. She owns a condo in Tahoe and had invited us to stay with her for the weekend. However, she had work to do so would be leaving after our train had departed.

After she dropped us off at the Martinez train station, we walked around the marsh for about 45 minutes and ate bagels. After we boarded and sorted out our seats we went to the café car, where I set up my computer to do a little bit of work.

The trip was nice. As we headed through the Yuba bypass, we looked at all the birds and after Sacramento, enjoyed the climb to Auburn. She pointed out areas through which she had recently gone hiking and a lot of other stuff out the window. We looked at the trackside geology near Emigrant Gap and made sure to sit on the side with the view as we passed through Yuba gap. As we passed Kidd Lakes, we decided to pack. However, I also showed her Tinker Knob, which I had climbed two summers before.

Once we were off the train in snowy Truckee, we went to the taco shop across the street. Our Hostess, who had left Martinez about two hours after us, found us having a drink along the river then. That was when we headed over to Kings Beach.

Our hostess had already stopped through her condo in Kings Beach by then so the house was nice and toasty. We spent a few hours settling in. I played a bit of catch-up with my messages. Eventually, we drove into town and had pizza at a nice place which offered detroit style. We then went to Safeway and bought a mountain of food.

Back at the condo we unloaded the food and looked at what was on offer in the house.  Then we had some drinks

I had a light headache. I was not a very happy person.

I texted my older sister about staying in Kings Beach. 

We settled into watch Sherlock Holmes–our hostess found the code for prime.  My friend made it through the whole movie but our hostess went to bed. We found that there was a bit of snow coming down at the end of the night when we went to bed after 10.

On the day that I wrote this I was up at 9.  My friend and I left at around 10:30 and went to Incline village and got some coffee before driving to Spooner Lake and going on a walk. The lake was totally frozen but we managed to find a few dry patches to avoid freezing.  I didn’t want to go around the whole lake but we agreed to it and in the end it was cool seeing the aspen groves.  

Later we drove halfway back to Incline Village to go for a walk in Secret Cove.  You have to park on the highway and descend to it.  While there was a lot of snow it was mostly easy to avoid it.  I noted that it was likely amazing in the summer.  We sat on the shore and took in the view.  We also saw a few others there taking photographs.

The drive back to the house in King’s Beach was easy.  Once we were back inside, we engaged in light conversation.  I took a short nap and I texted my older sister.  We made plans for her to visit.

At 6 we set up for a salmon dinner and ate at 7.

 

This is an occasional series chronicling my life. This Notebook Analysis series is meant to be contemporaneous piece developed as an agglomeration of my notebook pages. In each of these posts I used my notes to develop my recent thoughts.

The Ski School

On February 9 I wrote that I had been staying in the town of Norden near Donner Pass. The night before I hung out in the common room at Clair Tappaan until midnight with guests. The next morning I woke to the breakfast bell ringing. After breakfast, I said goodbye to several guests who were heading home that day.

Then I got my stuff together and hitched a ride up the road to Sugarbowl from some lady from Davis to the ski resort and went over to find my kids with their mom at the ski school. Once we had gotten set up with our equipment, I took the boys to the kiddie slopes. One had skis and, as it was his first time, I got him a lesson with a novice level one instructor who was really great. My other son, who had been snowboarding before, got an intermediate lesson – level three.

I left the boys to go on a couple runs on my own but halfway up Judah Lift I discovered my lift pass had somehow been canceled. So, I ended up backtracking to re-authorize it. Later I headed all the way to the top of Disney lift to enjoy the view. I had recently taken a few trips to visit places I could see from the top during the previous summer.

Then I had a cup of coffee and took Christmas Tree lift to the top. Later I stopped at the coffee shop at the Village Lodge. I did several runs to get back to the kiddie runs but in the end I had to cut across a few runs looking for my boys.

On the one hand, I found that my snowboarding son was doing really well. However, my skiing son had also improved and was no longer lacking confidence. I took the boys to Judah Lodge and gave them chips before heading back out.

My skiing son told me then that he was content to ride the conveyor. However, my snowboarding son wanted me to take him on the White Pine Lift which was for beginners. So, we did that a few times but then I told him that I wanted to see if his brother wanted to do the kiddie lift too.

Unfortunately, I think he misinterpreted my words because he dashed off to speak to his brother and promptly disappeared. When I caught up with his brother I learned that he had taken his board off and walked to Judah Lift. Thankfully, I was on skis so I was able to chase him over to the lift. That was how we had a surprise trip to the top of Mount Judah. We had a fantastic run. I got pictures. It was awesome – my son said the run was awesome twice.

When we got back, I let the boys use the kiddie slope and conveyor for a while. Eventually, the three of us returned to the ski school to drop our gear off. Their mother found us as we walked to the lodge and I said goodbye.

I stopped at the bar in the village then before hitching a ride to the lodge. I made it with plenty of time for the dinner bell and ended up sitting with some new guests. In all there were about 16 people. After dinner we congregated in the common room where someone had built a fire.

This is an occasional series chronicling my life. This Notebook Analysis series is meant to be contemporaneous piece developed as an agglomeration of my notebook pages. In each of these posts I used my notes to develop my recent thoughts.