Got some time to kill, so hey, how about updating this thing a bit!

This last weekend Josh, Andrea, Julie, and I went to Lake Tahoe for some skiing and fun. We left on Friday and came back on Tuesday. We learned one very important lesson right away. Never, ever, for any reason, fly United. To paraphrase a saying of Heather C.'s "They suck, they suck, they f'ing suck!" We had 2 stops on the way out, one in Lincoln, Nebraska, and the other in Denver, before finally flying into Reno. Once in Reno we found out that the airline deliberately rerouted our skis in Denver. But they promised to have them to us by 2am latest. And in the off chance that we didn't get them they would reimburse us for rentals and up to 50% for clothing. How generous (insert sarcasm here). Well, Andrea set an alarm, and when the skis weren't there at 2am, she called. Oh, they didn't make the flight that we thought they would. But they'll be there after 8am. By noon at the absolute latest. We decided not to take their word for it and rented instead of waiting. I had always wanted to try a pair of Salomon X-Screams. They didn't turn as well or ride as smooth as my Volkl 5-star's, but they were pretty good. Unfortunately Andrea and Julie didn't like their skis as much, but they got along fairly well on them.

We skied Heavenly the first day. That place is absolutely beautiful. Great view of Lake Tahoe. You can ski from Nevada to California and back. Pretty fun. Also really crowded since it has a gondola actually in South Lake Tahoe. But definitely worth skiing at least once. Funny story from there. We were making our second to last run down, and Julie decided to hit some bumps in some trees under the chairlift. Andrea and I were feeling a bit tired, so we went around. Well, we get to the lift, which was maybe 50-100 yards away, and no Julie. Wait for a while, still no Julie. We see some people in the line that she was taking and can see that a snowboard and crossed skis have been put up. Uh-oh. After a while of waiting and trying to get ski patrollers to let us know what was going on up there, we finally rode the lift so that we could see. I had tried hiking, but the snow was too soft and I just sank, so this was our only option. Well, we see Julie helping a local patroller splint an arm. Turns out that a snowboarder in front of her crashed into a tree and broke his humerous. Julie was first on scene. 8-) To make life more fun, there was a really nasty accident well uphill from us that was taking up most all local patroller resources, so the one patroller that did come was very grateful to Julie for helping.

When we got home from Heavenly, we found that our skis had been delivered. At 4:00. So much for the second absolute deadline. F'ing United bastards... Anyway, the next day we headed out to Kirkwood. All I can saw is wow. The skiing was absolutely amazing. Very challenging, very very fun. It was very windy that day, so a few lifts were closed, and so we couldn't ski The Wall, which is their famous double black run, but we still had a blast anyways. And to continue the trend from the last day, as we're skiing off at the end of the day, we find a guy on the ground near the village area with a badly broken wrist. Wisconsin ski patrol to the rescue! At least this time all of us got to do some work. To make life more fun, most of the group with the guy were from Madison, and had skied Tyrol a lot. Tyrol patrollers fixing Tyrol skiers in Kirkwood, CA! It was really kinda funny. A local patroller came by about halfway through and we all got the guy splinted up and on his way. Again, he was very grateful for the help. Very nice people on the patrols out there that we ran into. Oh, and Kirkwood gives NSP discounts! 50% off if you have your cards and a letter from your PR. We didn't have the letter, but the girl was in a good mood and gave it to us anyways. Possibly the fact that I flashed 4 different NSP cards convinced her that I really am a member in good standing...lol.

Monday Andrea and Julie skied Heavenly while I hit shops and casinos with Josh. I'll type more about that later today or next week, because there were some fun stories from there, but hey, it's lunch time, and I've already typed more in here than I have in the last 2-3 weeks at least. 8-)