Blizzard in Tahoe

Being in the bay area definitely has its perks; you're close to all sorts of beautiful landscapes that are great for outdoor activities. Tahoe is only a 3 hour drive from San Francisco, and we finally had a chance to go this past weekend. Our plan was to leave Thursday afternoon, wake up bright and early Friday for a day of skiing at Northstar, then another day of skiing at Alpine Meadows before heading back on Sunday morning.

However, not all went according to plan. The three hour ride up took 5 hours due to traffic in Oakland and in Sacramento, not to mention a snowstorm that hit the mountains as we were crossing the pass to get into Truckee. We had chains, and once the chains were on, we could only go about 25 mph the last 20 or so miles. It was pretty scary.

Skiing lessons went all right, David picked it up really quickly, and although I felt all right during the lessons, during our runs down the regular slope I had a couple of nasty falls where I hurt my knees, and I wasn't having much fun. I don't think skiing is for me.

When we got back to the hotel, we checked up on the weather to see about the huge storm that was heading in, and when the weatherman predicted near white out conditions for Tahoe Saturday and Sunday, we made the decision to come back a day early. Although we had to give up a day of skiing, we felt we made the right decision for us, and we enjoyed being up in the sierra. (UPDATE: David's boss was also in the Tahoe area over the stormy weekend, and it took him around 9 hours to get back to the bay area; one of my co-workers was also in Tahoe, and they were snowed in so they couldn't leave yesterday, they left at 5 am Monday morning to get to work at 10:30! Looks like we made the right decision!)

Here's a picture taken from my iPhone of the drive out of Truckee, the calm before the storm. I also have a few more pictures posted of my flickr site.

The Office Mascot (or Rent-A-Dog)

I love going down to the Marina Green and enjoying the great weather...especially when it seems that everyone in San Francisco is down there with their dog. Makes we want a dog. Of course, growing up we never had dogs, just cats and a couple of ducks one summer (R.I.P: Mushroom & Government Cheese the cats and Donald & Daffy the ducks). David says I don't really want to take care of a puppy, I just want to PLAY with puppy. This is probably true.

My boss' son was at Rocket Dog Rescue one evening last week and saw the cutest little puppy, he just could not resist, so he brought little Teddy home. And the next day our boss brought him into the office. We are all in love. He hangs out in our office most of the day since we're the only office with a door, and he is adorable. I really wanted to take him home with me. Then he pooped behind my desk. And even though I still have much love for the Teddy puppy, I can honestly say, David was right.