Thank you Bassa!

It’s been exactly two months to the day since my last post. Since that day, we spent a wonderful week in Belize with two of our closest friends, visited Redding for three days with Joompur, crammed in a month’s worth of work into two weeks, took down last season’s crop and started a whole new batch, organized my home office, applied for DBE certification, cooked a lot, threw a couple of parties, chauffered Mom around on various errands, and took the dogs to the beach for their very first time!

I have been too busy or too exhausted to write much. After spending hours writing technical stuff for a Specific Plan, the last thing I wanted to do was write some more. The truth is, as much as I enjoy posting for fun, it was good to take a little break. I feel like I can get back into the groove of things now. Tomorrow…I’ll share Belize with you all.

Besides, it’s probably a good thing that I’ve been away. I think I get more awards that way! I am a SHINING STAR!!! At least I know Bassa misses me! Thank you Bassa!! You are the bestest most awesome ever! And congratulations on being a year old, blogwise — it has been a very good year for you!

Utah, Part 1

Part 1, because I’m not sure I can finish this tonight. Michelle just made me a hot toddy, well, two, actually, because I have caught a cold and don’t know how far I will get before they kick in. I am all congested, and it feels more like a head cold than anything else. And a little bit of an achy back which makes me a little suspicious of it being the flu. Anyways…

At 8,000 feet, breathing is difficult if you’re not used to the elevation. The air is so thin that it’s difficult to even do “normal” activities, like walking. When we first got to the resort, we traipsed a short distance uphill — maybe a hundred yards or so — and we were completely winded and had to stop to breathe. Of course, it was also after my one shot of tequila and Michelle’s two (but it was also her birthday, so she was entitled — Grand Centenario Plata, FYI.) Afterwards, we read the resort’s welcoming guide, which mentioned abstaining from alcohol for a couple of days. Oh well. It took us a couple of days to get adjusted to this climate. Added to this lack of oxygen was also the lack of humidity. Everything was bone-dry. We probably used twice the usual amount of lotion, and our skin still felt “itchy”. I had a bloody nose pretty much everyday we were there. I also developed this weird pin-prick sensation to anything cold. It felt like somebody was sticking ice splinters in my skin. Michelle had a weird skin rash that looked like tiny water bubbles (which is finally subsiding after several days back in California). Fortunately, the resort also provided a humidifier in every room. It might have helped a little — we had it on every night on full blast.

BTW, cooking also takes twice as long at this altitude. Water took a ridiculously long time to boil.

We had arrived at Snowbird late on a Friday afternoon, and stayed at the Cliff Lodge resort. The resort is a beautiful place — well thought out, well constructed. Engineeringly speaking, it was a work of art. Because it is known mostly as a ski resort, there was NOBODY there except for a small handful of folks. Saturday was our “recovery” day, that is, getting acclimated. We didn’t do much of anything except for shopping. But, it was also Oktoberfest, and suddenly the place was crawling with people. There were zip rides and alpine slides and trampolines — all were targeted towards families with kids. We had a lot of fun people-watching, but after a couple mugs and a few bratwursts, it was time to retire to our room. Yay, hot tub on the balcony!

We finally ventured out on Sunday (when we were finally able to breathe normally) and took the chair lift up to the mountain peak. It’s difficult to explain what vertigo feels like unless you are susceptible to it. It’s not a “fear of heights” as much as it is a chemical or biological response. It is a visceral feeling, and the only way to deal with it is to fight it  with a lot of intellectual reasoning and a lot of breathing to calm the nerves. Michelle finally felt that same sensation when she looked over the 9th floor banister down at the lobby — her palms immediately got sweaty. Anyway, after an 18-minute ride on the chairlift to the peak at Mount Baldy (11,000+ feet), we hiked all the way back down to the resort. It took us a little more than two hours, and I have blisters to prove it. Our calves were aching by the end of the hike. Thank goodness for the hot tub! (And thank goodness we decided to hike down instead of up.)

Whatever possessed us to do the hike again on Monday, I cannot say…but we did. This time a little longer (we took a different route), and by then my blisters were bleeding and I had to put on bandaids. I’ll need new hiking boots. I also have one mysteriously bruised toenail. Our calves were now screaming. But, we saw a couple of moose (mooses? meese? moosen?) and a bunch of other interesting wildlife. There were marmots, for example, which I think might be a relative of the prairie dog? Anyway, there were signs on the resort grounds not to feed the “potguts”.

If you are an avid hiker, or climber, Snowbird is a good place to be in the summertime. It’s only a half-hour’s drive from Salt Lake City. The mountains are spectacular, much more grand than anything I have seen in a long time. But aside from that, and maybe just spending some alone time, there’s not much else to do here. If your calves are screaming from the hikes, and you get twitchy because you don’t have other things to do…well, this is probably just a long weekend kind of place. Even the concierge person that Michelle spoke to, said that we would be ready to leave by Tuesday….and how right she was.

But I will save that for Part 2. Maybe tomorrow. The hot toddies have kicked in and  I need to go put my head down on a pillow now….