Trip to California

One good thing about the military is all the great people you meet. Some you’re stationed with are reassigned to places like Northern California, others (oddly enough, civilian) you meet when you’re deployed to places like Djibouti, Africa and they’re filming a documentary that is picked up by CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360.

My door is always open to friends, family, alien life forms, etc. who are looking for a place to crash while visiting whatever interesting (or boring) place life happens to take me. Likewise, most people I know often extend the same invitation. It’s often said, but seldom followed up (or expected) that one will ever come to visit those friends.

One friend, we’ll call Sean, so happens to be stationed in Northern California. And conveniently enough, another civilian media-type friend, Aaron, lives in San Francisco. I briefly lived in the Bay area before joining the military, but haven’t been back since. Furthermore, I haven’t been skiing since I left New Mexico a few years ago. So, after some mediocre planning I took the opportunity to visit those friends and knock out some skiing and a reunion with the City by the Bay.

After a meal, some pool (I was beaten relentlessly), a couple of beers, a nap, another meal, and a couple of phone calls, Sean and I headed down to SF and met up with Aaron. Aaron lives with about 14 other people in an artist collective. He has a really cool pad and the few roommates I met were reasonably friendly. We went out to a few bars and had some drinks then called it a night. The next day we visited a little more of the city and then parted company with Aaron.


(This is what I don't miss about California)

Sean and I went back to his apartment and gathered some luggage and some food and headed for Lake Tahoe.

We got to Tahoe a little late but had no problem waking up to hit the slopes the next morning. We crossed the road from our hotel, rented our equipment and headed up the gondola for the few trails that were open so early in the season at Heavenly. The skiing wasn’t great, but was much better than what’s available in San Antonio.


(Check out that view. That's Lake Tahoe in the background, but I guess you had to be there)

After as much skiing as the lift operators would allow, we went back to the room, cleaned up, and went over to the casino (conveniently located 700 feet away). Eight hours later, we called it a night, err, morning and turned in.


(This was par for the course; I had 20, got the match bet--same suit, but lost the hand)

The next day was supposed to be another at least half-day of skiing, but we opted to go back to the casino and donate some more money. Four hours later, we broke even and called it quits.

We headed back down the mountain to Sean’s apartment, stopping only for sushi, and turned in for the night. The next morning at 3:30, Sean dragged my half-dead butt back to the airport and slowed down just enough for me to not injure myself as I leapt and rolled from his truck. This wasn’t out of hostility; I think he was still asleep. I’ll give him a call sometime to see if he made it home okay, but for now it’s back to the daily grind.

Speeding through vacations one day at a time,

Marty