a99kitten's Musings

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 :)

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 :)

We saw the Taylor Swift concert last night! It was excellent!! Loved every second!

It was at the Mandalay Bay Event Center which is pretty big and it was packed. Obviously tons of little girls, tween and teenagers. But also plenty of couple and groups of non-kid aged people too. She definitely draws a mix of fans.

When we got there Gloriana had just gone on. I had seen their video on CMT and liked if a lot. Noted their name to disnliad their music just 2 weeks ago. Now I will for sure!

Kellie Pickler came out next. She is frackin’ adorable. Very pretty in real life and teeny-tiny! And she has a great live voice! I had some bitchy comments on twitter a while back about her live singing ability. Those people clearly have bad ears. She did a great job & very energetic – dancing all over the stage. She was wearing some sparkly glittery 5″ heels and she kicked them off after several songs to dance around. Very fun.

Then came Taylor. Her songs were fun productions with dancing or costumes. Her band really seemed like they were having fun with her too.

At one point she showed up on the other side of the center, sang a song with talking to the audience in between and then walked down to another small stage to an acoustic set. She then walked through the crowd to the main stage hugging her fans & taking pictures with them. She is very clearly appreciative of her fans.

She made sure she was all over the stage in every direction so each side/section could see her throughout the show.

She was definitely having a lot of fun WITH us :)

We had great seats and I really don’t need the hearing in my right ear from the screaming group of teenage girls next to me :)

Taylor writes her songs. And you can tell her teenage fans appreciate the honesty. And she was cracking me up with her chatting about her bad boyfriend songs.

Lesson 1 from Taylor: if you break her heart, hurt her feelings or mess with her friends – she WILL write a song about you :)

Lesson 2 from Taylor: boys shouldn’t do bad things. :)

I loved this show. And I would pay to again in a second. This is a lot for me as there are very music acts I like enough to want to see live.

I took some pictures with my iPhone and hope they come out here..

Taylor rules!!!(channeling my inner 16 year old!)

Going to Las Vegas today with my husband. We are going for the long weekend to see the Taylor Swift concert. Sounds fun right? (I’m sure it will be ctuslly…once we get there.)

The unfun part is getting there.

Last night I asked my husband what time we needed to be ready to walk out the door. He said 11:15am. Now, whenever we go out of town, in addition to packing for the trip, I need to leave instructions for our house/pet sitter (these are very detailed), do all the dishes, clean the kitchen, take the garbage out, make the bed, set up the guest room & general pickup. I HATE to come home to a messy house.

My husband – he packs his stuff.

Today, after doing all my stuff, as well as taking the dogs on a 1.5 hour walk, was ready as instructed at 11:15 (few minutes early actually.)

We left around 11:35am. With husband saying in car how there was a chance we will miss our flight. What??

Get to our office where we left my car to take a cab to SFO (this was an attempt to save time as long term parking shuttle is chancey.)

In the cab on the way to SFO he got a call from Southwest that our plane was just delayed 2 hours. Guess we won’t miss the plane…

We get there, we wait in line, we finally get all bags checked and we are set….to wait 2.5 hours. Husband says he is calling his brother to come pick us up so we can all go have lunch. What??

His brother is probably 15-20 minutes away (easily.) I feel this is silly. This is a big airport. Let’s just find a restaurant, sit down & have lunch. Not interested in waiting for pick-ups, driving around, parking, etc. etc. I rush around all the time in life – can’t we just sit down? So I ask “Why the heck can’t we just sit down??”

He goes on to explain his mode of travel…which is much his mode in other things. Why be early? It’s a waste of time when I have other things to do.

I can agree with this theory for a lot of occasions. I have a hard time sitting around & doing nothing but sometimes I just want to not rush around and stress. You can enjoy every minute even if chilling for some of them. But not sure he can at all.

This is one way we are very different. And traveling REALLY spotlights it. I’m just amazed I haven’t punched him yet :)

Ok, rant over! Time to go to our gate soon. I will post more about LV I am sure!!