A whole bunch of America

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In America, according to Randy Newman at least "you get food to eat; (you) don't have to run through the jungle and scuff up your feet". If getting here is half the fun I'm in for a dire few days! Firstly I am up before 6.00am to pack and get generally ready to fly to San Francisco which means first up a trip to Munich. The seasoned world traveller will tell you that from Heathrow Munich is pretty well in the opposite direction if your destination is SFO, but such are the vagaries of modern cheap air travel.
So from 8.00am London time when we leave for the airport until 11.30pm SFO time (or 5.30 am London time) when I finally check in to the Islander motel just off highway 80, I have been driven to Heathrow, flown to Munich, walked the length of Munich terminal 2, flown to SFO, picked up the hire car and navigated the California road system to get out of SFO and on the road to Tahoe!
The car incidentally was to be a Toyota Rav a small 4x4 to cope with driving in the mountains, instead I am handed the keys to a new red Dodge Nitro, with a name like that you pretty well have to assume that it will be a bomb so no surprises there! It is big, ugly... no FUGLY, it's total option range is a radio CD player and it practically runs out of petrol while idling in the rental garage!
None the less I do feel that I have now conquered California, after a few days driving in Naples California is for girls!
Wake up with the same general confusion that has accompanied every waking and start out for Tahoe where each of the next few days will be Groundhog Day. Get up ski all day eat and sleep until the next one. First step though is to get to Tahoe Vista and check in to the Rustic Cabin that is to be my home for the next few nights. As I can't check in until after two I take a few detours of the highway for breakfast and general looking around. This inevitably means having to talk to the locals who seem pleasant enough and are kind enough to say everything two or three times until I can decipher what they are saying. I quickly work out that this country has only one collective adjective, a bunch. You can have a bunch of cream with that coffee; while you look through the bunch of newspapers which themselves hold a whole bunch of information on a bunch of stuff.
An acquaintance who lives near Tahoe (Linda) has lined me up a ski hire place that kit me out with some pretty fancy skis and after a look around the lake I head back to the cabin as the snow starts to fall. Linda is a double diamond skier and general snow enthusiast so when I call round to see her to go out for the day it is a surprise to see her looking sick as a dog! Turns out she has come off a snow bike and hurt her ribs. She looks dreadful so I take her to the local emergency room where they say she has four broken ribs and will not be skiing for at least six weeks.
So I drop her off so she can recuperate and head up into the Alpine Meadows resort for the afternoon and then to Squaw Valley the next day. Then it is Saturday and some friends come up from SFO and we spend the weekend skiing Alpine Meadows. They are all expert skiers and it comes as a pleasant surprise that I can keep up and occasionally better one or two of them. Their expertise stretches my skill level and by the end of the weekend there is not a run I have not shredded, being one knarly dude, dude!
Every day we have clear blue skies, deep snow and more or less perfect conditions and after four days I am buttered on both sides!
Monday I was thinking about spending the morning on the skis but opt to see a whole bunch of San Francisco instead. It is a four hour drive punctuated by a stop at TJ's diner for breakfast of eggs bacon hash browns and pancakes which I cannot finish because I am also given a bunch of coffee.
In SFO I find a place to park and just play tourist in China town, Jack Nicholson nowhere to be seen, Little Italy, (still no Jack!) and the waterfront (I called out for Marlon a couple of times but no joy)
Then it was a thrill a minute drive through down town SFO to get the car back and my arse on the Qantas jet for 14 fun filled hours of sleep deprivation! I watched I am Legend on the movie channel and what a god awful movie that was! I would have walked out except for the obvious reason!
I must have got some sleep, luckily I was able to get three seats to myself so I could lie down and get a bunch of Zees!
Finally we touch down and with a couple of hours to kill before the flight to Canberra I indulge in the single best thing about the Qantas club and stand in the shower before getting into clean clothes! In the lounge I meet a friend from work! Welcome back to Oz!
I have a bunch of pictures to put up in the next day or so....

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