It's sometimes a bad idea to drive around in a snowstorm
8:06 PMSo this weekend to celebrate the end of finals and to, I guess, get me to improve my snowboarding skills, the boy and I went up to Reno to hit the slopes. Along with this, a gigantic massive winter storm was rolling into the California/Pacific area bringing around tons of rain and snow and what now. Regardless, we still decided to press on (actually, the boy decided it wasn't a big deal and my brain was too fried from finals to look at the weather.
Here is a picture story of what our weekend was like:
Friday: Started off from home pretty early in the morning so we missed the 30 car pileup on I80 heading into Reno. Here is the view from the road on our way back from Mt. Rose after snowboarding for the afternoon
Not too bad, little snowy but the road was clear at least
Saturday: No pictures of the mountain but it was basically a complete whiteout on the slopes and I was covered up completely with my burglers mask and helmet and goggles looking like the hottest thing alive. :)
Above is Saturday's dinner at 775 Bistro in Reno. We got a whole bunch of small plates and just shared them between the two of us. Decent food and here are some gratuitous pictures of beer and the boy enjoying the beer. Can't you feel his excitement? He also took a shot of habanero tequila and I took a video of it but his reaction wasn't interesting enough to post. Poor guy had a stomachache afterward tho...
So sunday....Sunday, sunday, sunday. What a hot mess you were, actually a cold, slushy, horrendous, blizzardy mess...
This was highway 50 going out of South Lake Tahoe...
But wait, I said I was in RENO so what happened? Well, when we woke up and tried to get onto the road, we made it as far as Boomtown (classy place) before we were told to turn around because of zero visibility conditions on the pass of I80 going west into California.
SO, we turn around and decide to head down south along the eastern edge of Lake Tahoe to catch highway 50 that would spit us back out onto Highway 80 at Sacramento. Good in theory right? Well apparently, when we got into South Lake Tahoe, we should have noticed the signs that it was time to turn around.
1. It took us 3 hours to get from the Heavenly Village to the on-ramp of Highway 50. If you've never driven that area before, it is MAYBE half a mile....HALF A MILE IN 3 HOURS.
2. We sat through at least 20 cycles of the same traffic light without moving an inch
3. Some guy walking down the side of the road was going farther than us
First picture is right off of the on-ramp to Highway 50. It's complete bumper to bumper traffic for as far as you can see and the road is all ice and powder.
Second picturet is the level of snow that had fallen which was probably at thigh height...I know because by this point, I was seriously contemplating running to the side of the road, digging myself a snow hole and peeing. Sitting for 5 hours in a car is really brutal on your bladder..
Then, we finally gave up when people began turning around and telling us that the road was closed due to avalanche control for the NEXT 9 HOURS. Thank goodness for hotels.com and iPhone's because we then made a reservation at Montbleu for a room that night and for $79 we got that plush pad that you see up there for the night. Yes that is a jacuzzi, yes we used it and no we did not clean it beforehand. I took a pretty scalding hot shower upon exiting the hot tub for fear of weird cooties. *shudder*
Monday morning, we left the hotel at about 7am to get onto the road. The pictures above are highway 50 at maybe 8am. The visibility was near zero and the road had JUST been plowed. Doesn't look like it huh? Yeah, we had chains on but it still took us about 5 hours to get home.
Definitely an experience. I'm glad to be home. My butt is tired from sitting so long and I am so thankful for the ability to drink as much water as I can now and not worry about having to rush to find a gas station bathroom. The powder was fantastic for snowboarding but the driving was miserable.
However, now it's my "spring break" from school so I have the week to recover before the torture of a new quarter starts. Hopefully you all had a non-blizzardy weekend and spring break!
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