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For Christmas, June and I planned to take Chris, Teresa, Brett, and Em to Tahoe for a long weekend snow vacation. As it turned out, Em was not interested, and Teresa spend the weekend with her Mom in Arizona.
A few days before the weekend, after confirming that the weather would be perfect, I went on the Homewood websight and bought each of them a 2-day pass for Homewood. After Brett told Chris and me that he planned to use duct tape to repair his badly worn snow boots, he reluctantly decided instead to go shopping on Craigslist. He was ultimately pleased to find a 'like-new' pair of boots in San Rafael for $100. With them, he also found an excitement for going snowboarding again.
June and I drove up to the cabin on Thursday morning (the 10th) with 'The Beast' (June's cool Subaru) loaded with food and clothes. Chris and Brett drove up in Chris's Subaru after he got off work. They got in at midnight, we had a nightcap, and were in bed at 1am.
Friday morning, we had a nice egg sandwich breakfast, then the guys hit the slopes. A couple of hours later, June and I took a walk up the hill to rendezvous with them on the slopes. June brought her snowshoes; I, regrettably, did NOT. We stood around for 30 minutes or so at the meeting spot, then got a call saying they got lost and would be another 20 minutes. Ugh! We went back down the hill, but decided to take a detour up the spillway to Quail Lake. We got within about 100 yards, but the snow was too deep and I was dead tired. We turned around.
Chris and Brett had lunch at the Homewood grill and later described a monster plate of fries and chili that they had with their $18 hamburger, which also came with fries. They got back to the cabin around 4pm, and we finally ate around 7:30. Until then, Chris played music for us on his guitar. June made a nice spaghetti dinner with green salad and a lovely bottle of red wine. Afterwards, we finally sat down at the kitchen table for the main event: Sequence! June and I versus the boys. Did I mention that Chris was plastered? After a couple of hours, June and I had ransacked them 4 to 1. They vowed revenge the next evening. Chris and Brett were dead tired and started to wonder aloud if they would be up for more snowboarding tomorrow.
As planned, on Saturday morning we all woke around 7:30am. We decided the night before to sacrifice 2 of the 4 potatoes that we planned to bake with meat loaf that evening. Chris chopped and fried them up with green peppers and onions. I chopped bacon and cooked it up. June cooked scrambled eggs with the bacon. We all agreed in was a delicious breakfast. The guys again hit the slopes while June and I drove first to Obexer's to replace the potatoes, then onto Eagle Rock. There, we strapped on the snowshoes and trudged up the short, but steep hill along with at least a dozen other people, not all of them as well-equipped as us. But we all enjoyed sensational views. From there, we drove down to Sugar Pine State Park and walked there.
The guys again pigged out for lunch. However, just before lunch, Brett had decided to try to 'switch' his footing on the snowboard. This resulted in the board flying out from under him, sending him jolting backwards onto his back and head. They returned to the cabin around 4pm, dead tired and sore.
That evening, the dinner that I was anxiously looking forward to, June's famous meatloaf with fully-loaded backed potatoes, came off exactly as planned. The revenge session of Sequence came off exactly as Chris and Brett had planned, pretty much the exact reverse of the previous day. At the end of the evening, Brett found ice cream in the freezer, accused us of holding out on them, and dove in.
Sunday morning, we laid around for quite awhile. Chris and Brett watched football and cleaned the bathroom and changed sheets. They hit the road around 1:00pm. June and I headed out for more snowshoeing. We walked down to Chamber's beach, then through the common forested area between Chambers and Rubicon. We went home by 4pm to watch the start of the Australian Open tennis tournament and feast on a nice meal of leftovers.
We woke the next morning, started the cleaning routine, and were out the door and to Firesign by 10am. We left Tahoe City by 11am and were at home at 2:30. We finished the audio book 'The Last Juror' by John Grisham. Outstanding!