"To obtain the air that angels breathe, you must go to Tahoe." Mark Twain

We ended our last conversation with New Years Eve in Las Vegas.  And now on to the next chapter….

With the January winter weather setting in around us, we decided it was time to say goodbye to “Daisy the Growler”.  We sold our beloved campervan, bought a sedan instead and headed to snowy Lake Tahoe.

In case you’ve never heard of Lake Tahoe before, it is around 3-4 hours inland from San Francisco, (or much longer if there happens to be a blizzard at the time – right Luke?).  It’s a pretty big lake on the California / Nevada border, with lots of ski resorts and towns surrounding it.  We were headed for a little town called South Lake Tahoe, and it’s rather large ski field called Heavenly.

We were joined for the first two weeks or so by Nat & Vince, Dan & Karen, Dee, Len, Nick & Kerry.  Yay – party time!  In no particular order, there was black jack, day spas, ribs, beer, outdoor fire pits, poker tournaments, pubs with sand pits, Mongolian, burgers, body painting, celebrity head, margaritas… 

Playing in the sand pit at Cabo Wabo, Harvey's Casino, South Lake Tahoe

Celebrity Head in the sand pit at Cabo Wabo

Nice jugs (of Margarita) Dan!

Electronic blackjack.  (Nathan's blocking the view of the corsetted dealer...)

Mmm, baby back ribs!

And of course lots of skiing!  Whilst base wasn’t quite there as yet, at least the days were sunny and the views awesome.

Skiing California Trail, with Lake Tahoe in the background

We popped down to Reno aka “The Biggest Little City in the World” with Dan for a night.  So much fun, what a rocking little place!  Highly recommended as a younger, funkier (and cheaper) version of Vegas.

With our buddies on their respective flights home, we hunkered down in our new apartment and spent some serious time doing nothing except skiing and reading.  We also tried a bit of snowboarding.  We got passes for Heavenly, Sierra and Northstar, and basically spent our time between these three mountains.  One of Danya’s friends Nate Friars works at Northstar, so we hung out with him a fair bit of the time.  And another of our friends Luke Shardlow popped by for a few weekends of boarding.  And so a few leisurely months passed us by…

Dude, where's my car?

Just another perfect day at Heavenly...

With our year holiday almost reaching conclusion, when we heard that Virginia City, an old gold-mining town in Nevada had an Oyster Fry on one weekend, we just had to go and check it out!  Unfortunately, these oysters turned out to be of the mountain variety (aka breaded sheep testicles), but we gave them a try nonetheless.  You know, they’re not too bad!  Kinda like veal schnitzel…

Saloons along Virginia City's main street

Chocolate salty balls?  More like veal schnitzel...

So, all good things come to an end, and we flew back into Sydney in early April.  Looking back, we really had an awesome trip – I’m so glad that we had this opportunity.  The highlights?  Umm, so hard to choose.  Yellowstone was awesome.  So were The Canadian Rockies.  And so was the Yucatan in Mexico.  Spending a season at the snow is something I’ve always wanted to do.  And then there’s San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, New York City…

So what next?  Well, we kinda accidentally got jobs in Melbourne…  But I’ll leave that to the next instalment!