Monday, January 23, 2006

Greetings from the Great White North!


This weekend involved a quick jaunt up to Tahoe for a weekend of wine-tasting and amateur skiing.

We started off on Friday by stopping at what had to be the smallest wineries I have ever been to. The first "tasting room", Greene Family Winery, was in a large metal building full of casks and other wine making equipment. But they made it look nice with a bar and some crackers and dip.

The next winery was a little more upscale, they had a tasting room which was its own separate building, and surrounded by grapevines, so it looked a little more legitimate.

All along the way, we heard about some old man called Charlie. The stories ranged from he was a wacko, to just a crazy old coot, but they all fell short of the truth.

Uncle Charlie, as he should be referred to, lived out in the middle of nowhere and his "tasting room" was a foldout table in a barn. But he was very laid back, made great wine, and was very open about getting your own refills. "Once I pour the first glass, and finish talking about the wine, its up to you to get your own refills!"

That's Uncle Charlie with the two bottles...

...I'm apparently already drunk (on the right), good thing I was driving!

Danielle has not skied since she was 9, and she did quite well. Once the situation with the "Evil Boots" was resolved, she made very good progress coming down the slope. Luckily for me, the terrain park was right next to the bunny slope, so I could do some more adventurous skiing while still keeping an eye out for her. At one point I had her try to take a picture of me going over a jump. She missed the shot and yelled out "Oh, damn!" which made me turn and look, and then eat it quite hard. She was able to get a picture of me falling though!

We stayed at a friends cabin in Truckee and a good time was had by all. There were lots of drinks made and consumed, but I believe that Demetri's Pometini (a pomegranate martini) was the most beloved.

But I would have to say that my favorite part of the weekend was building the snowman that I originally didn't want to make. Thanks to my girlfriend for dragging me out into the snow and not hitting me with too many snowballs. I named him Phil and you can see him both above and to left.

I'm also happy to say that my boycott of all things snow that began here, is happily over.

Of course, life is an ebb and flow, and after such a great weekend, there had to be something bad. This morning, upon walking out to my car, I found that one of those small triangle windows on the rear passenger side door is broken. I'm not sure if the alarm scared them off (I never even heard it) or if they just couldn't reach the lock once the window was broken, but nothing was stolen that I could see (even though there was an air pump and a bag of ski equipment nearby) so it looks like I'm just out of the cost of replacing the window.

"So comes snow after fire, and even dragons have their ending." -JRR Tolkien

Phil says "bye-bye" now

Posted by timothy :: Direct Link 3 comments

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