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!

I Love Food and Weekends

This weekend was a little uneventful....but sometimes those are the best kind of weekends.

Pat and I tested out our new lens by taking pictures around the house. (A post about our new lens to come later in the week).

I started my Saturday morning out with a simple but tasty breakfast....toast. I like my toast with cream cheese and jam. And as you can see, I occasionally have cheese whiz. I know that's bad, but it tastes so good on toast.

 

This breakfast of champions was followed by a mani-pedi. My nails look great, but the whole experience could have been longer. When I get a pedicure my favorite part is the foot massage and this pedicure was lacking in that department. But, I guess I can't really complain because I bought a groupon for the mani-pedi for only $18.

 

Pat and I spent the rest of Saturday afternoon watching HBO's (ridiculously long named series) - 24/7: Penguins/Capitals: Road to the Winter Classic. It's a four part series that followed the Washington Caps and Pittsburgh Penguins, giving an inside perspective leading up to the Winter Classic game.

We really enjoyed the series, which was evident because we watched all four episodes in one day. It was well shot and edited, interesting, hilarious at times, and very entertaining. They mic'd the players and the refs during games so it was particularly interesting to hear their comments. If you haven't watched it already and you like hockey (even if you don't follow hockey), I completely recommend it! (as long as you don't mind the massive amount of F-bombs and the occasional bit of blood).

Sunday morning I made our traditional (as of lately) Sunday breakfast of pancakes. I think we need to cut back on this tradition to keep our waste sizes from growing. But they were delicious!

After breakfast, Pat and I ran a few errands. First stop was Barnes and Noble, so Pat could pick up Settlers of Catan....a very addicting board game. I headed straight for the cooking and discounts sections. I stumbled upon The Pioneer Woman Cooks, which was on sale, so I bought it.

Recently, I've been following the Pioneer Woman's blog. She's someone every woman can aspire to. The Pioneer Woman, if you haven't already heard of her, is a city girl turned rancher's wife. She homeschools her four kids, makes home cooked meals, dabbles in photography, has made a business out of her wonderful blog, and is now an author of two books. Her cookbook has some of her best recipes and gives some insight into her life on the ranch.

While Pat was busy washing our car, I stayed in the car and read her book. (Washing the car is really a one person job, I would just get in the way, right?). The Pioneer Woman has some really great ideas, so good in fact that my mouth was watering the entire time. I made an ingredient list on my phone and our next stop was the grocery store.

Last night I made the following recipes from the book:

Pico de Gallo

added avocado to make Guacamole

PW's Potato Skins

Perfect Pot Roast

I loved how the Pioneer Woman's book had step by step pictures for each recipe. BTW, she took all the pictures in the book herself.

All the recipes I tried were delicious. The guacamole was fanatic! Pat devoured it! The potato skins were perfectly crisp. Although the potato skin in the picture looks somewhat like a baked potato, it wasn't. I scoped out the middle to make mashed potatoes.

Finally the pot roast was tender, flavorful, and fragrant. I love using rosemary with meat, the aroma and flavor it ads are amazing. Aside from the recipes, I used the broth from the roast to make gravy; it's not difficult to make, like so many people make it out to be, and it tastes so much better than making it from a package.

The Pioneer Woman definitely doesn't hold back on the use of oil and butter in her recipes (although not as much as Paula Dean); when cooking for a ranching family the focus isn't really on fat-free. So this book might not be for everyone. However, I enjoyed it and will keep in my repertoire as a go to for good old fashioned comfort food with a twist.

Trip to Maine

Last weekend was a busy one! We went on the MIT ski trip! 500+ people all went up to Sunday River in Maine for the weekend. We took over the resort. We left Friday night and returned Monday night. Although there were buses driving up, we opted to drive ourselves because I had a work party Friday night.

My work party was a blast. It was mardi gras themed and they really went all out. They provided masks, feather boas, hats, and beads. The appies, meal, and drinks were delicious. We left early so we could drive to Maine that night, but it's too bad we didn't stick around because we missed out on the dancing and karaoke haha. I didn't take any pictures that night! I KNOW!?! We were too busy chatting. So here is a picture of the mask, beads, and boa to make up for it.

The drive to Sunday River went pretty quickly considering it was late; it took about 3 1/2 hours. On the way, we stumbled upon a TIM HORTONS!! I've never been so excited in my life! (well that's probably a slight exaggeration). mmm.....earl grey tea and a sour cream glazed donut. We bought a box of donuts to bring to our group at Sunday river - the OMG PoNiEs - Americans group and Canadians group (we had to pick a group name for room purposes and this name has a long story behind it). We wanted to introduce the Americans in our group to these delicious treats....but we (the Canadians group) ate them all. I guess they were just too good to share.

Saturday morning we were up bright and early to start boarding. The area received a bunch of snow before we arrived so the conditions were pretty good and it wasn't very icy at all. Sunday River is a very wide resort. We stayed on the mountain and our condo was on the far left side of the resort. To get to the runs on the opposite site of the resort took a while. We had to work our way over in a zig zag fashion....up a lift down some runs, up another lift, down some more runs, etc. There was also a lot of traversing on flat runs, which is not fun on a snowboard; but besides that, the resort was great!

Here are some pics from our first day:

 

Sunday we took skiing lessons. They were free with the trip! The lessons were a good choice. We learned a lot and our teacher was amazing! She wasn't afraid to tell it like it is, which is so important when learning something new. I like feedback!

I was also fortunate enough to get a pair of skis from Pat's mom! She wasn't using them anymore and sent them to me as a surprise. The skis were the right length and the boots fit perfectly. They arrived just in time for the trip! Pat didn't have skis so he rented for the day.

Photos from our wonderful friend Yildiz who braved Sunday's weather to take pictures:

Our day of skiing was a lot of fun and there were no major wipe outs. After skiing we went to the Foggy Goggle to eat and have a few drinks. They had a draw for a bunch of stuff and Pat won a pairs of skis! Now we both have skis :) Hooray!

The final day on the mountain was a coldest one yet. It was -32F (-36C) with the wind chill at the top of the mountain. It was COLD. Fortunately, Pat and I had purchased masked the day before, we looked like "Jason" but it was worth it!

This was the only picture we took on Monday...and it was in the gondola:

I also want to talk about Sunday River's Chondola...yep that's right chair lift/gondola. For every four chairs there is a gondola, it is actually a pretty neat system. Apparently these lifts popping up all over European resorts. It worked out quite well for us. The first two days we took the 6 person chair because we didn't want to wait in the gondola line and on the last day we took the gondola because it was so frigid!

Chondola

I will finish this post with a random fact for you: I was perusing perez and learned that the father from both Seinfeld and King of Queens is Ben Stiller's dad (his mom is also a comedian)....who knew! haha