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We made it back from Canadia or, for the ininitiated, Canada. Okay, so it’s just Canada, but doesn’t Canadia sound more exotic and exciting?

We had a great time. We got much better at boarding and nearly mastered the easy green run by the end of the day yesterday. The weather was nice but strange. I’ve never been skiing on a mountain with so much fog. I could see well enough but patches of fog would come and go and you just had to keep your eyes open and pay attention.

Even if we hadn’t snowboarded, there was plenty of other stuff to do in Whistler. We went sledding on the first night we arrived. We paid by the hour to rent a tube and have guys push us down groomed sledding runs. We could hold onto each other’s tubes or go solo. It was great and it was a fun way to start the trip.

The next morning, we got up bright and early to get our equipment at the rental center. The place was chaotic but we got our boards, boots, wrist guards, and helmets. We spent about four hours on the mountain with five other beginners and one instructor. We learned how to balance going backwards and forwards and how to do basic turns. I still suck at turning, but the forward and backward balancing got me through this trip.

That night, we went out for our “fancy” dinner at a Bavarian restaurant. I love good German food but alas, this food was not good. The schnitzel sucked. At least we had good food for the rest of our trip.

On Wed and Thurs, we practiced boarding and even took the lift to the top of the mountain to check out the view and have lunch at the big restaurant on top. It was more of a shop/giant food court with an awesome view. We were too chicken to ski all the way down, so we took the lift back to the midway point and kept practicing on our favorite green run.

This morning, we woke up so sore. My legs hurt but my arms are worse. I spent three days balancing and hoisting myself up with my arms. Now they ache. It was worth it though. I have to get better at boarding or “riding.” I’m not ready to buy my own equipment or a season pass, but I do want to take another lesson.

We got home today no problem. Aside from waiting in line at the US/Canadian border for an hour, our trip was uneventful. The scenery was nicer today since it wasn’t as foggy as it was on Monday. We got to enjoy the sea-to-sky highway and see the mountains rising up out of the ocean.

Tomorrow we’re off to see Laura and Rodney in Portland. We’ll be crashing with them until Christmas day and then we’ll be back to pack and move our stuff to our new apartment. It never gets boring.

Mom was here for nine days. We took a ton of pictures. Here are a few of them.

Here are a few pics of our trip to Seattle. As you can tell, we made a few stops along the way.

Pfeiffer beach at Big Sur, Sunday, May 28, 1:30pm PST.

Although we would have been quite content to stay home, watch TV, and ponder the intricacies of the rubik’s cube, we decided to take advantage of our three-day weekend and see the sights.

We got up mega early on Sunday (8am) and hit the road. We took highway 101 down to Gilroy and then cut over to Monterey via hwy 156. We had never driven this way before and it is SO much better than going through Santa Cruz. Taking hwy 17 to Santa Cruz is a clusterfuck. Never again.

Once we got to Monterey, we, or I, immediately pissed off the state parks service by getting in the wrong lane to enter the scenic (and pricey) 17-mile drive. We have no pictures of the lovely, historic, scenic, blah blah blah 17-mile drive because A: I was annoyed that we had to pay an $8.75 toll to basically drive around some rich folks’ neighborhood and B: I had to pee and was on the lookout for a free restroom. We found one at the end of our journey at the Pebble Beach clubhouse (so chic!).

Next, we cruised down hwy 1 and checked out the scenery. Although I’ve been down hwy 1 north of Monterey a few times, none of the beaches or cliffs looked quite as dramatic as those of the Big Sur region. Maybe it was the sunlight, maybe it was the absence of much traffic on a Sunday morning, but damn if it wasn’t pretty. We drove for about 45 minutes until we hit Big Sur proper. Big Sur isn’t as much of a town as it is a series of inns, state parks, and small shopping centers sprinkled along a wooded highway. We stopped at one just past the entrance to Pfeiffer state park. We picked up some sandwiches and planned our next stop.

Since there is so much to see in Big Sur, we had to choose our destination wisely. I knew beforehand that we wouldn’t have time to see everything, so I thought we’d hit the highlights while we were down there. After lunch, we found the nearby entrance to Pfeiffer beach. We drove down the winding, 1-lane road and passed many swimsuited hikers heading down to the beach. “What idiots!” we thought as we cruised past them. Didn’t they know that it was 2 miles to the beach and that they’d have to hike back up the hill when they were done? Tsk, tsk. We pulled up to the entrance and the woman at the gate told us we were lucky: even though the sign at the top of the road had said “lot full” (huh?), there were a few spots open. We paid our $5 and happily parked in one of the few spots left. So THAT’S why those idiots were trekking down the road. I guess our cluelessness paid off.

We changed into our shorts, applied sunscreen, ditched our shoes and headed down the path to the shore. The path leading down to the beach became rocky once we got closer to the shore. We had to step over some stones and little slivers of driftwood to get to the water. I cringed as I stepped on a particularly sharp piece of wood. The pain subsided and I decided to walk it off. A few minutes later, I could tell there was something stuck in my foot. “Dammit,” I thought. I had a splinter or something wedged in my foot. I looked down and, under the clump of sand, I saw something clear sticking out. What the hell was it? I tugged on it and felt a twinge of pain. Whatever it was, it was stuck tight. Then I realized that it was a strip of skin I’d scraped free of my foot. Eeeew! It didn’t hurt and I wasn’t bleeding but man, it looked nasty. I kept that foot out of the water and stepped gingerly. I was fine. It just looked nasty.

We hung out on the beach for about an hour. There were lots of families there with little kids. Someone had set up a volleyball net and some girls were playing lacrosse. Lacrosse? Anyway, a fun time was had by all. It was a bit chilly though. We found an out of the way spot and set up camp. Then, the drowsiness set in. After about 20 minutes, we decided to get up and walk some more. The cold air woke us up a bit and we decided to head back to the car. I cleaned up my foot, dusted off all of the sand, and then drove back up the coast as the sun sank lower toward the horizon. We got home around 5pm, showered, and I crashed. At least we had Monday to fully recuperate.

Today is Danny’s birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY HONEY!!!!!

We went to On the Border for dinner tonight and we are still stuffed to the gills with pseudo-TexMex. Hey, at least they have queso. It was good but now we are painfully full and neither one of us wants to deal with work for the rest of the week.

Since Danny buys gadgets and new toys often, I had a hard time thinking of something cool to buy for him. I took him out to lunch and to a movie this weekend, but I wanted to give him something to unwrap on his birthday. I got him these:

The Labyrinth. No, not this one.

THIS one.

This. Is. Hard. I saw it and knew Danny had to have it, at least so I could play with it. Selfless: that’s me. One of my Jr. High teachers had one and I spent hours trying to get that damn BB around the track.

We played it for a while and determined that no human without super skillz could get the ball all the way to the end. Okay, so we gave up after five minutes, but it’s impossible!

I also got Danny a rubik’s cube. He is low on desk toys (he has none) and he needs to raise his level of “desk play” to that of his coworkers.

I also bought him a mini rubik’s cube because the regular one is impossible! Do you see a pattern here? We’ve both played with the mini-cube and have determined that it is just as cantakerous as its big brother. If it is doable, we feel even stupider-er.

Finally, here’s a game we can’t lose: Rubik’s snake. You make shapes. Bam, you’re done. However, many of the “shapes” are questionable. If you can guess what this is, I’ll give you a cookie.

I added about 70 more pics tonight. Have at ‘em!

Check the gallery.

…..that is all.

Image courtesy of janine42584

This week’s Veronica Mars was the season finale. In it, we find out that the mass-murderer/rapist/blackmailer was Beaver Casablancas; cute little put-upon, victimized, total sweetheart Beaver. Sigh, it was so sad but so believable. Who would really suspect that the puppy dog would murder innocent people and rape the heroine while she was drugged? Bravo Rob Thomas, Bravo. *slow clap*

In other related yet even MORE frivolous news, I found out that I am most like Veronica Mars.

You scored as Veronica Mars. You used to be really popular, but now you are the school outcast. You are really smart and somehow have all the answers… and you can snark like no other.

My mother and her best friend Gerarda are visiting us this week. Mom has come out here several times, but this is Gerarda’s first trip to California. We have done much sightseeing in the last two days. They’ve been to San Jose twice, San Francisco once, and pretty much everywhere else except Berkeley or the beach. The beach is on our agenda for tomorrow after we meet Gerarda’s nephew for brunch in the city.

Here is a picture of Filoli gardens, which is located about fifteen miles from my apartment. Needless to say, it was completely breathtaking.

This picture is from Walton park near my office. The statues are of a man and his two dogs, just in case you couldn’t tell. I couldn’t at first.

There are also some pics from my trip to Austin last weekend. More updates to come….