Lake Tahoe: the trip of HIGHS and LOWS

Last weekend we went to Lake Tahoe for a snowboarding extravaganza. It was certainly the trip with highs and lows.

Heavenly Resort, Lake Tahoe

 Our trip began Thursday morning (Feb 17). We were up bright and early to catch our direct flight from Boston to San Francisco. However, halfway through the flight we were told that we had to make a landing in Salt Lake City to fuel up because of the strong headwinds. Ok, fine, a slight set back. But we were watching the weather report for Lake Tahoe on the flight, and we were super excited about all the snow they were getting.

Our fuel up in Salt Lake City went quickly and we only ended up being delayed about an hour and a half. When we landed in San Francisco we met up with some of the peeps from our group that live in the area. They had already picked up the rental vehicles and we headed straight for In and Out Burger for some much needed food. MMM.....this place is delicious! If you ever get the chance try it!

Because of all the snow that Lake Tahoe was getting, we had to buy chains for the vehicles, as it is required by California law. So by the time we finished making all our little stops, we didn't end up leaving San Fran till after 6pm.

Once we got to the mountains we had to stop to put on the chains, which was quite a battle. Luckily I had the man slaves to take care of that. haha. We had to drive extremely slow when the chains were on.

After we passed the second check stop for chains and we thought we were in the clear. Only 20 some more miles to go until we reached our cabin. BUT, then all of a sudden cars were slowing down and came to a stop. What, a traffic jam at 11:30 at night? Yep! People were getting out of their vehicles to figure out what was going on, but no one could get a straight answer.

Eventually, the people ahead of us started to turn off their cars. We were all hopeful that we would get moving soon, but that little bit of hope began to subside when it hit about 2am. Everyone in both our vehicles seemed to get some decent sleep....except Pat and I. We could not fall asleep! I even tried sleeping across the luggage in the back. But that didn't last too long.

That's me trying to sleep in the back of the Jeep

 Eventually Pat and I decided to go for a walk and stretch our legs. Not far away from where our vehicle was stopped was a hotel.  The hotel was all booked up for the night, but we sat in their lobby by the fire for a while and used their washrooms. While at the hotel we heard that traffic was slowly starting to move, so we headed back to the car where our pals were pasted right out.

Our car moved up a bit, but then stopped. We did this start and stop for a while and then finally we started to get going. Woohoo! The sun was coming up and we were finally on our way. We later heard that the delay was due to an accident and then an avalanche, at which point we think they closed the road until daylight.

We finally arrived at our cabin at around 6:30 on Friday morning - over twelve hours after we left San Francisco! (it's normally a four hour drive). At this point we had been up for well over 24 hrs. Although "sleeping" in the car was a terrible experience, it did end up snowing over TWO FEET of snow just that night.  So the delay was somewhat understandable, and after a quick 2hr nap at our cabin, was definitely worth it. There was no way we were missing out on all that powder!  It was probably close to, if not the best conditions we've ever experienced on a mountain!

Our cute log cabin was only a block from Heavenly Resort, which was extremely convenient.

The Escape Cabin

Our Room

View of the backyard

Look at all that snow!

Ranko and Fred enjoying the hot tub after the first day

Pat and I really enjoyed Heavenly. We may have been slightly biased because of all the snow, but it was fantastic. They layout is somewhat unusual because there are a bunch of black and double black runs near the bottom, but we didn't mind. There was so much powder that we stayed in the trees most of the time to fully enjoy the snow. We only did a handful of groomed runs the whole time we were at Heavenly. What's also pretty neat about the resort is that it spans Nevada and California. Our cabin was at the base of the California side.

Here are a few pics to get an idea of how stunning this resort really is!

Yep that's me in the snow. Flew off a snow covered rock that I didn't see. Took awhile to get out!!

Look at that amazing lake!

Top of the Gunbarrel run - Double black run on the Cali side

The rest of our time at Heavenly was exceptional!

On Sunday we decided to go to the Kirkwood Resort and then head back to San Fran. After packing up our cars and cleaning up, we were on the road relatively on time. BUT, then we ran into more traffic!! What gives??? We were at a stand still and eventually a cop car came driving by to inform us that Kirkwood was at capacity. So we just decided we would head back to San Francisco early.

We had to keep driving on the road to get to San Francisco and we knew that one of the cars we were with got in. As we were driving up to the resort they were still letting cars in! Yay! We ended up parking about 1 mile away from the resort village, but luckily a shuttled picked us up during our walk.

By the time we got going it was about noon. At this point Pat and I were very frustrated! We made our way to the backside and had a lot of fun. But we were pretty tired and my legs were sore from all the powder from the days before. We decided to make our way back to the front side and do some groomed runs.

We hoped on a small two-seater chairlift and just when we though it couldn't get any worse, sure enough 3/4 of the way up it stopped! Of course it did! That was just that kind of luck we'd been having. About 30-45 minutes later the lift finally started up again.

In hindsight, I guess on our last day a half day was all we needed, but we were just sick of all the logistical problems! Well even if everything seemed to go wrong at least we had the most amazing powder I've ever experienced! And I guess I can now say I've "slept" in a car overnight. haha

Just to give you an idea of just how much snow we had here are the snow reports!

This was the snow report from our first day!!

Heavenly snow report day two!

Kirkwood snow report day three! 72" is the last 48 hours - that's about 6 FEET of snow!!! 

After snowboarding we made our way back to San Francisco. Since this post is getting kind of long, I will tell you all about the SF trip in another post.

Aperture and depth of field

A couple weeks ago Pat and I purchased a new lens: it's a Canon 85mm f/1.8. I thought this would be a good opportunity to talk about aperture and depth of field.

The simplest way to explain aperture: it's the opening in the lens that lets in light, like your pupil. Therefore, the larger the opening the more light that is let in; otherwise known as a wide aperture. Thus, a small opening is a narrow aperture. Easy enough, right?

Now this is where it can get confusing. A wide aperture = smaller f-stop number setting on your camera. A little counter intuitive. In the case of our new lens: f/1.8 is a wide aperture.

(On a side note: a wider aperture will also increase your shutter speed because it lets in more light; therefore, reducing the potential for camera shake, especially in low light situations).

A lens with a wide aperture is great for portrait photography. It allows you to blur the background making your subject standout; this is an example of depth of field.

Depth of field is how much of the picture is in focus. Thus with a f stop of f/8.0, more of the picture will be in focus then lets say a picture taken at f/2.8 (shallow depth of field). Changing your aperture settings is one way to control depth of field. Other ways are to use zoom or to change the distance between you and your subject.

I find the best way to explain aperture and depth of field is by showing you! So here we go :)

The camera settings I used are below each picture. I shot in aperture priority mode for all pictures.

The first three pictures were taken with our Canon 17-55mm f/2.8 lens:

1/25s,  f/8.0, ISO 100, 55mm

1/250s, f/2.8, ISO100, 54mm

The first picture was taken with a narrow aperture, f/8.0. Notice how more of the background is in focus when compared to the second, taken at an aperture of f/2.8. In the second picture the aperture is wider, thus making a more attractive portrait because the background is less distracting.

1/200s, f/2.8, ISO 100, 17mm

 The third picture is a pull back of our shot location. Not that pretty, right? But by zooming in and choosing a wide aperture you would never know it was a parking lot.

The next two pictures are an example of how to achieve depth of field using zoom. They are taken with our Canon 55-250mm f/4.0-5.6 lens.

1/40s, f/4.0, ISO 100, 55mm

1/100s, f/5.6, ISO 100, 250mm

While standing in the same spot, I took the first picture by zooming out as far as I could with this lens (55mm); in the second picture I zoomed in all the way (250mm). The farther I zoom in, the more the background is out of focus. The second picture is much more appealing to the eye. Note: the farther away the subject stands from the object behind him, in this case the wall, the more the background becomes out of focus.

Another interesting tidbit is that at 250mm the widest aperture allowable with this lens is f/5.6; however, although the aperture is not as wide as the first lens (which is f/2.8), I was able to achieve a blurred background by zooming in.

Finally, the next two pictures were taken with our new lens, Canon 85mm f/1.8. Saving the best for last!

1/30s, f/8.0, ISO 100, 85mm

1/640, f/1.8, ISO 100, 85mm

The first picture was taken with an aperture of f/8.0; therefore, more of the background is in focus compared to the second picture, which was taken with a wider aperture of f/1.8. The effect of a wider aperture allows the subject to POP. The background is smooth and less distracting, allowing the viewer to better focus on the subject.

The last picture is by far the most appealing of the group and the best example of a shallow depth of field. Here is a side by side comparison of the best shots from each group in the order of appearance:

        54mm f/2.8                                                       250mm f/5.6                                                      85mm f/1.8

You will also notice that the field of view is the same for all three pictures. However, the distance between me and the subject changed for each lens. For the first picture (lens: 17-55mm) I was standing less than 10ft away from Pat. The second shot was taken standing approximately 30ft away (lens: 55-250mm). Finally, the third picture was taken at a distance somewhere between the first two shots. It's also worth noting that these three pictures were also taken at the widest aperture available for each lens at their given focal length.

Hope you found this helpful!!

Now a picture of pat in the sun just for fun:

Super Bowl Sunday!

This was my first Super Bowl in the US, although I didn't really watch that much of it. It was the first time I could actually watch the US commercials and I have to say they let me down. Either the commercials have been far better in previous years OR people have just hyped them up to too much.

The half-time show was alright I guess. I wasn't expecting much because I know the Black Eyed Peas are not that great live. The light show and the costumes were pretty cool though! I can appreciate all the planning that went into that!

The fun part about the Super Bowl was making the superbowl-ish food.

Like guacamole...
and wings...

and chili with garlic bread...

For dessert I made apricot mini cheesecakes

While we're on the topic of food, for Sunday breakfast I made "egg in the hole", which is a recipe I got from the Pioneer Woman's cookbook. It was so fun to make.

Other than that our weekend was pretty quiet. Pat worked on Saturday and I went grocery shopping. I did pretty well, buying all organic food, with the exception of a couple items. I spent around the same amount of money we usually do when we don't buy organic and bought just as much!

Tip of the day: don't go grocery shopping the weekend of the Super Bowl...I went to three different stores and they were all packed! I waited in line to pay at Trader Joe's for 30 minutes!!! But at least at the Trader Joe's staff are ridiculously happy ALL of the time, so that sort of made up for the wait.

Saturday night I made lemon herb chicken with roasted veggies followed by watching the movie She's Out of My League (with the guy from Popular Mechanics for Kids....does anyone else remember this show??? Cause Pat sure doesn't). It was somewhat cheesy at times and very predictable, but the cast is pretty funny.

Lemon Herb Chicken with Roasted Veggies:

Ingredients:

• 2 chicken breasts with the skin on
• a few sprigs of rosemary and thyme
• a couple cloves of garlic
• 1 lemon
• 3 carrots
• 1 onion
• Some baby potatoes (I used half a bag)
• 3 celery stalks

Put the chicken breast, rosemary, thyme, garlic in a ziploc bag. Zest part of the lemon and cut half of the lemon into very thin slices. Juice the other half of the lemon over the chicken. Throw all pieces of the lemon in the bag. Let the chicken "mingle" with the lemon, herbs, and garlic in the fridge for a couple hours.

Preheat oven to 350 F. Slice veggies and roast them with a little olive oil for about 20 minutes. Brush the tops the chicken breast with some olive oil (and salt and pepper if you like). Then put the chicken on top of the veggies and roast until it reaches 165 F (between 25-40 minutes depending of the weight of the chicken breasts and your oven). Broil the chicken for the last 5 minutes or so to brown the tops of the breasts.

Remove from the oven, cover with tin foil, and let the chicken rest for 10-15 minutes.

So simple and so delicious!