a99kitten's Musings

Today was day 2 of Tahoe vacation and Birthday Season (although technically I think Day 3 of Birthday Season there was plenty of lunch and cupcake celebrations on Friday!)

Took the buds for a fun walk at Donner Lake. We got a late-ish start around 7:30am so it was already pretty sunny and warm. Because of this, we did the easier, flat lake walk so the buds would get plenty of shade and lake time. I think it’s only about 2.5 miles but we did lots of stopping for sniffing and chipmunk chasing so it was about 1.5 hours of fun husky time! Angelus was slightly annoyed when I wouldn’t let him keep the dead chipmunk he found. No husky kisses from him today :) This is a nice, mellow trail. Good for the fluffy monsters when it’s warm and sunny out. Lots of access to the lake for wading in and plenty of trees, rocks, critters, etc to explore and sniff.

After the doggie walk, I relaxed with my coffee, read twitter and watched GAC. It was nice to not have to rush anywhere. Then Helen and I went for a hike. The weather was perfect hiking weather – warm, partly sunny, nice fluffy clouds that came in and cooled you off along with a nice breeze. We got a little over 1.25 miles in when husband called. His bike riding friend had fallen and punctured his arm and needed to go to the ER but left his wallet at our house with his medical cards, ID, etc. They were over an hour away so needed me to bring the ID. Dang….hike cut short :(

After getting ID to them, H and I went to Gar Wood’s in Carnelian Bay on Lake Tahoe. One of my FAVORITE places for lunch and drinks. They are famous for their “Wet Woody”. The best way to describe it is a peach Jamba Juice with plenty of light rum mixed in and a 151 rum shot floating on top:

Wet Woody!

Their lunch menu is delicious. I’ve never had anything there I didn’t love but I’ve repeated the sliders and fries several times. Today was no different!

Sliders & Fries!!

Other *very* yummy things there are the mahi-mahi tacos. And their garlic bread with gorgonzola cheese! And the zuchinni sticks.

We hung out quite a while. The weather was just so perfect and it was so relaxing. Oh, and we ordered another order of garlic bread with gorgonzola! The people here are usually nice, normal people out for a nice time and lunch. This time we had a bit of people-watching…The couple next to us were soooo obnoxious and ick. Pretty much everyone else there were as flabbergasted as us. The woman looked either beyond drunk or way high on something else. She was sitting on her boyfriend’s lap and they were making out – right there on the restaurant deck for all of us to see – and then feeding each other food (and not doing a very good job of it.) One of the comments you could hear from the girl “Why are you talking? Stop talking. You know I hate when you talk so much.” Ummm….so sweet…..thankfully they left. I know mean and superficial…but neither person was attractive in anyway so this made it all seem so much worse and annoying.

Then we walked down to the beach in front of the restaurant in search of the cute golden retriever puppy we saw go by! But he was too fast with his dad so we didn’t get to skoosh him :( But the views are just so awesome. I know I am spoiled living on the NorCal coast and it is very, very beautiful. But I do think I prefer the mountains, trees and lake view:

Then we went home and hung out. Husband and his friend Robert played Guitar Hero (I giggle at that myself…)

Guitar Hero-ing....

Tonight husband drove back home with our friends and it’s just me and the huskies for 3 days (then he will be back for my official birthday and long weekend.) The huskies are relaxing on the deck now that it’s cooler while I watch Law & Order: Criminal Intent and type this – crazy party girl…I KNOW :) But I need to get up and get those huskies out early to beat the heat!!

p.s. of course I was stuffed full after lunch until now…at 10:30pm…dang it!

Friday night we got up here up around 12:30am…pretty late for me!! I was very tired since I woke up at 5am. Once here, we unloaded the car, got ready for bed and finally got to sleep around 1:15-1:30am.

Angelus barked at me to wake up around 3ish…he *never* does this unless he has an upset tummy. But he did not. He had no interest in going outside to pee or anything. So I went back to sleep. Then he woke me up again a short time later. Again, he did not want to go outside the front way to pee. He wanted to go out on the back deck.  I was exhausted so I just let him out and said good night.

Then he woke up husband around 4am and was going crazy running from the back deck to go out at the front door. We are pretty sure he was tracking a bear or coyote outside as he simply doesn’t get that excited about a raccoon or smaller critters unless he is actually chasing them – DAMMIT! I wanted to see the bear!!!! Next time! It’s been almost 2 years since I saw the bear in our driveway – I am due!! :)

I woke up at 7am and took the buds on a walk for an hour. Then it got too hot for them. Pretty sure Stormy gave me the paw.  Then it was vacation-coffee-mode on the deck in the sun :) I love sitting out on the deck facing the forest. Very peaceful, pretty and the forest smell is amazing.  Mandy came over about an hour later and Helen woke up and we eventually rallied to do a 6-mile hike where we found this alien pod:

Alien Pod

Not sure what is was. But had fun convincing ourselves it was poisonous and might kill us all on touch if we touched it (we were clearly dehydrated by this point ;) ) So I moved it out of the path with 2 sticks….where it dropped. Lesson 1: do not put me in charge of the nitro-glycerin. After giggling at ourselves we continued on and finished the hike unscathed by the alien pod…oh yeah – we did name it John :)

Mandy and me looking out over Donner Lake

Helen, me and Donner Lake

Got back and laid in the sun for an hour or so reading magazines and chatting. We opened up a bottle of Brut and a great time was had by all!

Later we had a yummy sushi dinner at Yoshimi Sushi in Incline Village. This is one of the several rolls we go that were not on the menu. This one is called the Lucky #7:

Lucky #7 sushi roll

You can link to my Yelp review from a previous visit on the front page of my blog (under Lifestream.) I HIGHLY recommend this place!!!! But then again, not so much that it gets too popular and I can’t get seated :)

Now I am in a food coma on top of 5 hours of sleep, sun and hiking…so I think this party girl should go to sleep by 10:00pm on her first day of vacation in Tahoe :)

I was at the beach this morning with Angelus (Storm looked outside, said “sun is shining” and opted for cooler, lazier time at home.)  The tide was coming in but still somewhat low-ish so you could walk out by the break wall fairly far.  This is one of my favorite places to take the buds when it is low-tide as I can let them off-leash if no one is around (usually only early mornings.)  They are huskies so I don’t let them off leash in non-fenced areas.  They really are good at listening to me 98% of the time but that 2% is what I worry about.

But I feel safe here as we are far from any traffic and they run towards the ocean. And since they are not swimmers, there really is only so far they can go :) And then they can chase each other, birds, look for crabs, dig in the sand and play hide-and-seek with the seals!

But this morning it was just me and Angelus. And then 2 older ladies came by. They looked to be in their late 50s – early 60s and were wearing very similar, plain outfits with their hair in buns. At first I thought Amish. But then one took out a digital camera to take a picture of Angelus so that scratched Amish off the list. Mennonite? Conservative Mormon? Orthodox Jew?  No clue. But they were dressed far too similarly in very simple, plain (think Little House on the Prairie) outfits to not be something that didn’t condone dressing like a beach bum or in a Juicy tracksuit:)

The other way I could tell they were not from around here – they were so in awe of the ocean. And the rock wall. And the birds. They were looking at a starfish like it was a freshly-landed alien. They asked me if I was going to grab it. I answered ‘No – he’s fine where he is since the tide was coming up.’ They were in such awe of this thing. And it made me realize – we take so many things for granted in our daily life. I know I do. I live there so I see it every day. And I know it’s awesome. But to feel as excited about it as these 2 ladies obviously were – no, I don’t.  To be as thoroughly over-joyed as they were – no, I’m not usually.

So I need to start taking a little more time to appreciate the beauty of where I live and visit.  Because the sheer happiness and joy it obviously brought these 2 ladies was pretty darn cool :)

Went whitewater rafting today with husband and group of friends (12 of us so 2 full boats.) Super, duper fun! I have loved whitewater rafting for years. Been on several different American River trips, Yuba river trips and A Snake River trip in Colorado. Today, we did the middle fork of the American River starting outside Auburn.

We went with a tour group called raftWet.  They did a great job. Our tour guide, Chris, was awesome! He made sure we hit every rapid full on. He had us doing 360s in them, going in backwards, and actually paddling upstream to get us back into a waterfall/rapid. Although I do think he made it his mission to make sure I got wet in every single rapid!!! I think since I screamed the loudest, he thought this was funny! This is them:  http://www.raftwet.com

There were several different tour companies out on the river today. But ours was the *only* one with a kayaking photographer.  We always knew we were coming up on a crazy rapid when we saw him on a rock waiting for us!  The funniest thing is our guide was making us “paddle”, “dig”, “forward”, “back left”, etc…so our photos are likely of us grunting through the rapids. Or of us screaming as we got hit with the snow run-off freezing cold water!  Meanwhile, the other boat with our friends in it would just stop paddling and pose for the photographer!  And my friend Helen was in our boat and she wasn’t stopping to do “asian girl pose” for the camera as we were serious about our paddling!!

We were supposed to do the North Fork which is a shorter trip in time but “all rapids, all the time!” But they called yesterday and said the water level just wasn’t allowing this anymore this season…boo :( But something for next season for sure!!

I am pretty darn sure every single person in our party had a great time! I would love to plan another trip for this season ASAP. The weather was perfect. All week it was forecasted to rain but there weren’t even any clouds in the sky. And nice and warm.  We are getting the DVDs with all the photos mailed to us.  When I get them, I will post a few :)

I love hiking. I really, really do.  And when I say that, I don’t mean I’m all “Dude! Let’s totally scale that vertical side of the mountain!!’  No..definitely not that way at all.

I mean I love getting outside and walking, breathing in fresh air, hopefully seeing as many critters as I can and clearing my head. Getting outside does that for me.

I take my 2 huskies out for long walks every morning. I have been doing this for 8 years.  Every day, rain or shine (or snow!), sick or healthy (that means me.)  Every once in a while my husband will take over for me so I can sleep in but I’ve given up on that being routine. Plus the buds simply like me better this way :)

But because they are in contention as the thickest-furred and fluffiest dogs in the world, I don’t take them on sunny or warm day hikes. They don’t really enjoy it (Storm says this is an under-statement) and then I stress about them. So once the Tahoe snow is gone, I go by myself after taking them on their walks.

I love getting out on a trail, far away from any cars, not crowded with people (unless they have dogs I can say hi too!)  or noise other than nature noises.  I am always scouting for critters. In Tahoe I see a lot of squirrels, chipmunks, blue jays, hawks, lizards, snakes, bunnies and deer. I’ve seen 1 bobcat, 5 coyotes and 1 bear (but this was in my driveway on a 5am doggie walk on garbage day!) I WILL see another bear!!! But I think I just need to leave peppermint patties on my driveway for this!

My forest - call me Snow White :)

At home, it’s mostly squirrels, crows, hawks, bunnies and deer. Although if I walk by the coast I also get seals, otters, all sorts of ocean birds, dolphins and whales.

I love spending 3 hours outside in the sun (clouds are nice too as long as warmish still), walking and just having peace and quiet. It really is good for the mind, body and soul.  Will always put me in a better mood.

And I want to be able to walk as long as I want. I do not want a set return time or someone asking if we are done yet.  I do NOT like to be rushed on my ME time.  I rush enough for work, homes, chores, dogs, husband, etc, etc.

And technology isn’t so bad either since I can sit here on a tree stump and blog on my iPhone about how much I love hiking and the great outdoors :)  But I better go as the thunder is clapping and the dark clouds are moving

Storm is a comin'!