The road to South Lake is a pretty narrow and scary mountain road, but we were running late so we rushed getting down there. We made it to the meeting spot at 9 AM! We waited, and waited, and waited... saw numerous buses come and go, and no Rachel. She had our number but no cell phone, but we hoped that she would call on her friend's phone if something was wrong. We realized that we were very stupid for making plans with someone with no cell phone and who also displayed her forgetfulness on Sunday!!
She finally arrived just after 9:45 AM. She wasn't wearing ski clothes and she didn't have any of her stuff... meanwhile, we're in the car already wearing all of our ski clothes with our snowboards in the back. Instead of apologizing, she bought a donut. We asked her where her gear was and she said that it was back at her friend's house... so we took her there and waited for her to pack up her stuff. It was about 11 AM by the time we were ready to head to the mountain, and Rachel's attitude had really put Josh and I in a bad mood so we decided to head back to Tahoe City and drop her off at home. When we told her that we were just going to take her home, she said that she didn't really feel like skiing that day anyway. So frustrating!
We took our time driving back and stopped at a vista and took this pretty photo of the scenery.
We also stopped at a thrift store and consignment store and looked for a helmet and goggles for me, which I found at the latter. A nice pair of goggles and a helmet for $40! Rachel acted like we were wasting her time and was very unpleasant to be around... when we dropped her off at home we asked if it would be okay to spend Friday night at her place and she absentmindedly agreed. It was about 12:30 PM and to top it off, Rachel said that it was the perfect time to hit the mountain. We were in shock that someone could be so rude and totally waste our time!!
We debated whether or not to go somewhere for a half day of skiing, but there weren't really any half day specials and it just wasn't worth it. We hung out a Starbucks for a bit (still in our ski gear) and then headed to our new host's house.
We got to Steve's and instantly our day went from bad to worse. He lives in an incredibly small studio apartment... probably about 200 square feet; he slept on a twin bed between his futon and kitchen. The size wasn't even the issue: he is a smoker and his whole apartment smelled like smoke, and we both started to feel pretty nauseous. The conversation had a lot of long pauses so when he suggested that we check out Reno, we jumped at the opportunity to get out of there.
On our way to Reno, we called Lisa and asked if we could stay with her for tonight and tomorrow night because we did not want to stay in Steve's smokey apartment. She kindly said yes and even said that we could plan on just staying at her house for the rest of our time in Tahoe. We are so lucky to have met Lisa!
Our day went from worse to even worse-r when we arrived in Reno. I don't want to offend anyone from Reno or anyone who likes Reno, especially since we only saw the tiny downtown area, but it was super gross. Josh took this venture to launch his photography career, so I present to you his first collection: "Reno: The Grossest Little City in the World."
We never actually got out of the car in Reno so we didn't spent too long there. Josh and I felt really bad about leaving Steve's place, especially since he has been very flexible with our changing plans, so we decided to offer to cook him dinner to get to know him better.
Once back at Steve's place...
... he took the news that we were leaving pretty well, especially when we all ate pasta together and learned about his ten day silent meditation and trips to Burning Man. He seemed like a really cool guy; it's a shame that he smokes so much!
We got to Lisa's around 8 PM and met Lisa's roommate, Chuck, and his girlfriend. Chuck is a contractor who comes up to Tahoe for a day or two every week or so. For some reason, Lisa did not want them to know that we were Couch Surfers, so she told them that she met us at a coffee shop and offered us a place to stay... though I'm not sure what's worse. I'm really bad at lying like that so I tried to be extremely quiet so no one would ask me anything!
Josh and I were talking about how sore we both were; Lisa heard us and brought out some of her sports massage tools for us to use and showed us how to use them. It was wonderful! Our backs and legs feel much less sore now!
Josh and I shared the same high for today: it was wonderful that Lisa came through for us! Obviously Josh and I had the same low today: Rachel's attitude was just awful. We really feel that she used us for a ride, and didn't even say thank you that we drove a total of 100 miles out of our way to pick her up and didn't even do any skiing in South Lake. My ho was how much fun we had in Reno, just making fun of how gross everything was... especially that tattoo parlor, wedding chapel, and liquor and cigarette store all next to each other. Josh's ho was seeing used underwear for sale at the thrift store. He now wishes that he had taken a picture of it because it would've been a perfect addition to his "Gross" photo collection.
No comments:
Post a Comment