Virginia City

Today was our last full day in Tahoe so I decided to venture out to Virginia City, NV with my Uncle Joe and cousin Nicholas.  We walked up and down the main drag stopping in several saloons, museums, candy stores, and gift shops.  My favorite stop was the tour of one of the ore mines.  It was very informative and actually pretty cool to see.  We were also suckered in to seeing the Suicide Table thanks to all the signs advertising it along the drive in to the city (think of all those billboards advertising the Mad Greek in Baker, CA when on your way to Las Vegas).  Okay...  I shouldn't say we were suckered in since the suicide table turned out to have an interesting story.  It's an old poker table whose three owners each committed suicide after suffering heavy losses.  And we took pictures behind the jail bars - as a funny side note, my mom is the one who suggested we do this, but when she was explaining it, I heard her tell me to take my picture behind the gel on the street.  I clearly was not in a right state-of-mind since she was obviously talking about taking pictures behind the jail.  Stupid me.

Nothing else of interest to report for today.  We did take the long way home when leaving Virginia City to drive through Carson City and around the eastern shore of Lake Tahoe.  Oh...  I did finally finish The Clan of the Cave Bear so I started on my next book.  Mom gave me her copy of Carrie Fisher's memoir Wishful Drinking.  I'm nearly halfway through and loving it.  Part of the reason it's going so quickly for me is that every other page has neat photos of her parents - neither of which I really know.  I had never heard of Eddie Fisher's music and only know that Debbie Reynolds starred in Singing in the Rain (a movie I have never seen).  Even though I know so little about Carrie's Hollywood upbringing, her prose is drawing me in to her story and I am really enjoying it.

Kings Beach

Went to the beach today.  I swear that in the last four months of living in Portland I have gone to the beach more than during my eight years in Orange County.  Bizarre... no?  The family went to Kings Beach on the northern shore of Lake Tahoe.  We didn't stay too long - just long enough for me to burn the top of my forehead where I neglected to put sunscreen.  Whoops.  I stayed on the beach playing cards with my cousin and sister while the others rented jet skis and kayaks.  We had a pretty crummy lunch at Jason's Beachside Grille so that was a disappointment.  The rest of the evening was spent taking family photos, playing UNO, and relaxing in the hot tub on the patio.  Very nice day.

And once again I am at a loss for a decent media mention.  I think it's only fair that after two days of mentioning this game, tonight's mention should be UNO.  But I'll be more specific and talk about the Family Guy UNO edition which is what we have been playing in Tahoe (I also have the Simpsons edition at home in Oregon).  Nothing too special to note about this version except that in addition to the "wild" and "Draw 4 wild" cards they have included a "Domination" card - with Stewie's picture, of course.  This card acts as a wild card with the bonus feature of being able to block "draw 2" cards.  Definitely a fun game to bust out on a rainy day.

Northstar

This will be a quick update just to tell you that today was a fairly lazy but very good day.  We started out with a late breakfast of chocolate aebelskivers (a yummy spherical Danish pancake).  We spent the afternoon at Northstar Village wandering around the shops and doing kid-friendly activities.  The three young boys each took turns jumping on the bungee trampoline and worked their way through a ropes course.  We had lunch at Rubicon Pizza Company which is probably not related to Rubicon Brewing, but they did have Rubicon's IPA on tap.  After our low-key afternoon at the village, we went back to the house for the rest of the evening.  I taught the young boys to play dominoes, UNO, and some card games so we spent most of the night doing all that.  I had a great time with that because it brought back happy memories of my great grandparents teaching me those same games twenty years ago.  Okay, my great grandparents didn't teach me UNO - I learned that at day care - but they did teach me Dominoes and classic card games.

I'm not sure what the media mention should be since I didn't watch any TV or movies and I'm still reading Clan of the Cave Bear.  Hmm...  I guess I can be lazy and piggy-back off yesterday's mention and go with Garth Brooks' Double Live album (one of the ten I listened to during my drive yesterday).  One of my friends from high school played it during one of our sleepovers.  I didn't get into it then, but years later when I started giving country music a fair chance I remembered about this album and purchased it at Target.  It is now one of my favorite albums.  He is one of the few artists who actually sounds better live.  He has so much energy and emotion when singing these songs live.

Klamath Falls

Another road trip for me!  I drove 10 hours from Portland to meet up with my family in Truckee, CA for an extended weekend vacation.  The highlight of my very long day was my pit stop for lunch at Klamath Basin Brewing Company in Klamath Falls, OR.  Klamath Falls is the biggest city near the midpoint of this journey so I thought it was a good place to rest.  I foolishly ordered a beer sampler hoping to get to have a few sips of a couple of different beers.  Boy was I surprised when the lady came back with a huge tray of 11 big 5 ounce tasters.  I didn't even put a dent in all that.  But I had a sip or two of each one and decided I liked their IPA best.  I forget what they had on their nitro tap, but that was also surprisingly good.  The burger...  Not so great.  Didn't eat much of that either.

I really enjoyed the drive through Oregon and California (with a quick trip into Nevada too).  It was kind of funny entering California twice and going through the agriculture inspection twice.  But what kept me going was all my music.  When I got bored with my CDs I checked out the ones my grandma left in her car (I was in the privileged situation of driving her Lexus for this trip - very smooth ride).  I was pleasantly surprised to find she had Billy Joel's The Stranger in her CD player.  I listened to it twice (back-to-back).  I love nearly every song on the album and they are fun to sing along with - especially "Movin' Out (Anthony's Song) and "Only the Good Die Young."  Give the album a listen if you haven't heard it in a while...