Resonant Constellation

This Spring Break, myself and nine of my best friends travelled north to a cabin (owned by one of these friends) in South Lake Tahoe, California for a week of skiing and relaxation. What follows is an account of that trip.

NOTE: There is some strong language contained with, for good reason (usually). If you can’t handle that, then I feel sorry for you.

Tuesday, March 13, 2010: DAY 1: Tucson to Tahoe
3:54 PM (Arizona time): The Epic Waste of Time
We’re just leaving Las Vegas now after what I must admit was the most ridiculous waste of time I have experienced in quite a long while. We arrived at a little after 11:00 PM local time to meet the father of two of our caravan members who was here on a business trip. Unfortunately, he needed an extra hour to complete whatever business he was involved in, so we ended up wasting an hour around the strip, waiting so that we could have lunch with him. This seemed all fine and good, as we were still roughly on time.
I was already annoyed with Las Vegas and its idiocy, and this feeling was exacerbated by us having to wait from about 12:30 to 1:30 outside in freezing wind conditions (which appeared suddenly and without warning) to be seated after being told it would only take 20 minutes. When finally seated, it took another hour to get our food, during which half of our party froze to death (including myself twice-I had gallantly offered my wonderful jacket to a female member of the party who had neglected to come prepared). The food, when it came, was satisfactory, though not exemplary.
Perhaps the most horrible thing, however, were the people that frequented this erstwhile comestible venture. I espied no less than 10 (though quite possibly many more) people whom, for no other reason than that they looked like complete jackasses, I wanted to punch, directly and firmly, in the facial region. Our waiter was one of these. He had a sort-of faux-hawk hairstyle, which was obviously held together with either a large volume of hair gel, or normal quantities of extra strength industrial adhesive. I proposed that we remove this artifact from the top of his head and burn it to warm our frozen bodies. I also proposed it might last several days, due to the high volume of volatiles contained within. This led me to the natural conclusion that it should be treated like a menorah, and that every year we should light one, frosting a new tip for every day that the original faux-hawk burned. This proposal was generally met with loud approval, but was voted down in committee, as we were not yet prepared to declare war on the dining venue. We were, however, prepared to declare war on a certain nearby table who stole a heat lamp which we had been eyeing (what made this especially irksome was that they ALREADY HAD A HEAT LAMP AND ALL HAD JACKETS WHEREAS WE ONLY HAD NONE OF THIS). Our war, however, never happened. Would that it were, would that it were.
We are now finally leaving the city via the freeway at 4:30; we ended up wasting four and a half hours in this wretched, accursed place. We now are referring to it not as “Las Vegas”, but “Fucking Las Vegas.” The expletive is a necessary and important addition. We were delayed by unbelievable amounts of traffic caused by a single crashed car. There are no syllables in the english language, nor indeed any syllables utterable by any human tongue which can describe my fury.
Extra news: Fucking Las Vegas hasn’t let go yet. It seems that Rita’s car has missed an exit and is lagging quite a bit behind. We’re pulled over to wait for them. Dear God, when will it end? When will it end?!?!
Update: It ended.

Summary of things that have gone before:
We set off at around 5 AM from Tucson and headed north. Several hours of mostly uneventful travel was broken by a short while of waiting at the Hoover dam, and the singing of Trololol. Truly riveting. We also kept track of temperature, latitude, longitude, and altitude at constant half-hour intervals while in the car. We hope to graph these data to observe interesting temperature effects throughout the day.
Thought of the day: “If Scumman (Kingman), Arizona is the asshole of the west, and Barstool (Barstow), California is the armpit, then Las Vegas must surely be the festering, infected spleen of the west.”

7:00 PM (AZ): Middle of nowhere, Nevada Desert, north of Las Vegas
The sun has just been setting for the last little while and the quality of light cast on this barren and desolate surface is an amazing pink-purple-blue haze that is so typical of the gloaming times. Large mountains loom in the far off distance, a matte purple against the delicate pink of the sky. The first traces of snow have started to appear on north facing slopes in small patches. We’re now passing Yucca mountain, the proposed repository for nuclear waste. The one town we’ve been through seems to be almost entirely deserted. As the light of day dims yet further, the desolation, loneliness, and remoteness of this place looms, leviathian-like out of the gathering dusk. Although there are two other people in the car with me, the sense of aloneness I feel is quite intense. This is precisely what I needed. There is nothing like an endless, arrow-straight American road, running for miles upon miles, ringed around with snow-capped mountain ranges to uplift the spirits. I feel that this is about as spiritual as can I ever get.

DAY 2: Relaxation
12:45 PM
We got in a bit after midnight last night, quickly sorted out the sleeping arrangements and a quick snack/dinner, then went to sleep. Since I requested the couch, I was able to observe the entire house waking up in the morning. I was awake by around 11, and people began trickling out by half an hour later. We are all now up, and watching soccer on the ginormous TV. The plans for today include exploring Tahoe, gathering equipment, and possibly later, sledding. It should be fun.

1:16 AM
Today did very much turn out as expected. One event did stand out though: when renting my skis today, I noticed that they were both labelled “Brian,” so I have decided to call my skis Brian. Chris’ dad arrived late tonight and will be staying with us most of the rest of the week. It’s nice to meet my friends’ parents sometimes. In any case, Brian and I will be on the slopes early tomorrow, so I’d better get to sleep.


DAY 3: First day of skiing
After a quick breakfast, we headed to the slopes. After learning some basic things about skiing, I headed to the lift to the bunny hill with some friends. At the top of the lift, I was actually able to ski off the lift and come to some semblance of a stop on a flat part of the hill. I soon moved forward and began skiing for real. Then I fell down. Then I got up again and set off…and promptly fell down again. The process of getting down the hill took over half an hour in small portions of roughly 10 feet before falling down again. I didn’t keep track of how many times I fell, but it must have been over 20 times. None were all that painful, but I did have some wonderful wipeouts. I eventually made it down, and took a long rest before going up again. The second time went much more smoothly, and I only fell seven times. Several of those, however, were at high speed and were more painful than the previous run. I also learned that when I’m sliding down a slope at high velocity without skis or poles, I tend to dig into the snow with my fingers as if I was holding on for dear life. It does help to stop, though.
The second run was my last of the day, and we spent the rest of the day lounging about at the cabin. More to come tomorrow.

DAY 4: Skiing day two:
An early morning today, though it was well worth it-we made some excellent breakfast burritos. We finally made it to the slopes around 10:15, and on my first run of the day I managed to only fall 3 times. The first of these was rather painful, as I fell directly on my stomach and knocked my wind out. Still, I managed to get down to the bottom. The next run saw only two falls, though one was incredibly epic. I lost both poles and one ski, and probably slid over 50 feet. I left a rather recognizable and incredibly long trail in the snow behind me. On the lifts on the way back up, I was able to see a large pile of snow at the end of the giant skid path. The next three times down the slope saw only one fall each, and with each iteration, I learned more about controlling my speed and direction.
Finally on my sixth run, I made it all the way down without falling, though I was incredibly awkward and my legs were threatening to collapse underneath me. My last run, the seventh, saw me able to actually steer and slow down using turns instead of ‘pizzaing’ my skis or feeling entirely exhausted. Tomorrow, I hope to finally get off the bunny hill and go on to the real courses.

DAY 5: Last day of skiing/St. Patrick’s Day
Today was another early day, though a little less so than yesterday. We were on the slopes around 10:00, and I made two quick, but more importantly, successful runs down the bunny hill before agreeing to try my luck on a new course. The first one I tried is called “echo,” which is about twice as long as the bunny hill (mostly because the bunny hill itself is the second half), but has a much more picturesque lift ride and scenery. I made it down this run as well without falling, which bolstered my confidence enough that I agreed to try a run all the way from the summit to the base of the mountain.
I do not know what madness gripped me in those moments, but I assure you, it was a case of acute insanity.
While the lift ride was very nice, and the view from the top was beautiful, I had some slight difficulty with the run. Just off the lift, I was crowded by two skiers on either side of me, and promptly fell down. I might also mention that these skiers were in my own party. In any case, I recovered quickly and began the run called “sugar and spice.”
Everything seemed to be going well for the first half of the run- indeed, we were all extremely amused when Chris (one of the most experienced skiers in our group) fell in spectacular fashion while skiing backwards to film us with a small handheld camera (and, it must be said, at times laugh at us when we fell down).
Of course, the easy going was not to continue long. Mostly because this run was many times longer than any other run I had ever done, I tired rather quickly, and on an especially steep slope about a third to a half way through the course, I also fell in spectacular fashion, with both of my skis, both of my poles, and me flying in five separate directions. I eventually skied down to a flatter part to take a bit of a breather, and while standing about, I also managed to fall while unintentionally sliding backwards.
The rest of the run from there was excruciatingly painful, especially in my lower back and my left leg. Instead of continuing down the “Sugar and Spice” run, Pete took me down a hideous monstrosity called “Corkscrew” which wends its way back and forth down the mountain and eventually connects into echo and the bunny slope. While I did not fall again, I took quite a while to get down this, and at the bottom, promptly collapsed for several minutes before lunch.
I took a long lunch and ordered a beer at the ‘pub’ upstairs in the main building. Though it was a fairly unremarkable porter, it seemed to have an energizing effect, such that, while waiting for the rest of the group to join me from their next summit run, I managed three more runs down the bunny hill, improving my form each time. When my friends finally arrived, we decided to do one more run down echo (which required a run down the bunny hill in order to get to the echo lift). I was extremely pleased with this last run, and I was able to leave the slopes in good spirits and a minimal amount of pain.
Of course, as the night wore on, my tired and sore body began to make its specific hurts and grievances known (though these were, perhaps, not as severe as the two days before). All in all, I’m glad that this was my last day skiing; another might have been rather more painful.

DAY 6: Recovering
Today was used as a day of recovery by our entire party. Not much happened of note, save a brief but violent snowball battle, and a rotating pool tournament. We are continually having problems with our wireless internet, which remains a minor annoyance. As time goes on, I seem to be discovering more and more places where I am variously bruised or otherwise injured. It seems that skiing is rather violent.

DAY 7: Last Day in Tahoe
Another quiet day for half of the group, while the other half went back to the slopes one last time. We spent our day simply relaxing, then went out to dinner as a group to celebrate the end of our trip.

DAY 8: To Home!
We started out early in the morning, before sunrise, catching a quick breakfast at a local waffle place. Within a couple of hours of leaving Tahoe, we were in amongst the northernmost of the Sierra Nevada. As we dropped down lower and lower into the valley, the scenery grew more and more familiar, and I was able to identify several of the mountains we passed.

There is a wonderful place on the road, where you make a slight southward turn on the final downward slope into Owens valley, and come out from behind a hill, and the entire range of the Sierra stretches out in front of you beyond the horizon. That view is, to me, a breath of fresh air for the soul. It is at once renewing, amazing, and strangely comforting.

From here, we pass through the Mojave, San Bernardino, and on to Phoenix before arriving at home. The rest of the journey was rather uneventful, and by the time I got home, I was ready to collapse on my bed (which, though a little too small for me, did not require contortions like the couch in Tahoe). I was out within minutes, dreaming the dreams of the just.