I have been suffering from the restless feet curse. I go through my phases where I always have to be busy and it usually subsides after a while - so far I am still going strong. My restless feet may have something to do with the fact that I am getting in to the best shape of my life and love to be outdoors, or it may just be because I have waited for a long time to be able to go out and do stuff and now I am in a position where I am able to do that. Having said that there was no way that I was going to be happy spending four days sitting at home.
Saturday we stayed local running errands and shopping a bit. We saw the movie "The Devil Wears Prada" and spent some time in REI where I finally picked up a water filter (it would have come in handy on my previous HD hike). We also picked up Louis' recent purchase - a Glauc. I have not generally liked handguns but since it is going to be in my house, I need to learn how to properly shoot and care for it. More classes to take! The upside is that now that we have one gun and will be going to the range, we will get a shotgun too for shooting trap. Shooting those clay pigeons is very fun!
Sunday was a go somewhere day. I had decided that I wanted to check a few more waterfalls off my list and finally decided that a trip to Lake Tahoe was in order. It is so beautiful up there. The beauty offset the fact that there were a lot of people. Emerald Bay was a madhouse. I had to shark a parking spot - it took me a good 20 minutes to even find a place to squeeze the Subaru into off the side of the highway. The paid parking lot was even full. The two waterfalls to see at Emerald Bay are Upper and Lower Eagle Falls. I only visited Lower Eagle Falls due to the overcrowding. It is an impressive waterfall and you can hang out next to the top of it. Last week a woman actually slipped and went over the waterfall to her death. With this in mind I was careful not to get too close to get "the perfect shot". It was amazing me that people were taking their small children through the water so close to the lip of the falls. The next waterfalls on the roster were Upper and Lower Glen Alpine Falls. While driving there we were treated to a wow view of Cascade Falls.
Unfortunately the view from the trail does not offer such a good picture and thus we did not make the trek to that waterfall. The road to the waterfalls on Glen Alpine creek was a test in patience. It turns in to a one lane road that snakes along Fallen Leaf Lake. As you can imagine due to the popularity of Lake Tahoe this weekend there was quite a bit of traffic on this road. It was a not a fun ride for Louis at all. Add to that the fact that the Subaru was not so happy at this elevation - very sluggish and gutless. We eventually made it most of the way to the trailhead to Upper Glen Alpine Falls by car but we had to get out of the car so we walked the rest of the way to the trailhead. I enjoyed the short 3 mile roundtrip hike from Lower Glen Alpine Falls to Upper Glen Alpine Falls and back. After we were done with the falls, we headed to Reno for dinner and rest.
Monday we returned home early and hung out. I was attending a BBQ on Tuesday and I was assigned the task of bringing dessert. I have been wanting to make an apple pie for awhile but seeing as I am really the only one in the household that eats apple pie I haven't made one. This was the perfect opportunity! I made a pecan pie and an apple pie.
Tuesday started with the Tour de Pulgas Ridge! Pulgas Ridge is a small county park that I hike in occasionally and in the spirit of the Tour de France we turned our hiking excursion in to a mini tour. The first three "stages" were won by the sprinting Louis. Once I realized that I was three stages behind, I turned it on and won the King of the Mountains jersey and secured the yellow jersey on the final climbing stage of Stage 4 with a 55 second lead by jogging to the top! The final results ended in me winning 3 stage wins winning two jerseys (including the yellow jersey!) and Louis winning 5 stages and the sprinters jersey. Neither one of us qualify for the rookie jersey so that one went un-awarded. After that was my friend Ryan's BBQ! Tasty food and good company! I was recruiting hard for more hiking victims, I mean participants. All in all the weekend was nice but went by too fast.
What is tentatively on deck for this negative ion addict? Handgun lessons, Hong Kong for a week, my first kayaking class, two day trips to Yosemite, a possible mountain bike/hike to Feather Falls, and my cousin's wedding in Colorado!
I am yet again suffering from insomnia. This time it is really bad because I am still battling jet lag from my trip last week to Hong Kong. With that said, I figured that since I am up anyway I might as well be productive and write about my trip.
What you do want to hear about is the recreational stuff I got to see! I was there for a week but I didn't have an extra day there like I did last year. The one thing I have to say about Hong Kong is that the food is wonderful!!! We ate arranged dinners on Monday night and Wednesday night (a nice Chinese restaurant and then a nice Thai restaurant respectively). Tuesday and Thursday we were on our own. The days we were on our own we went to a mall and had food at the food court (I picked Shanghai style pork chops and rice) and the other day we went to Lantau Island and saw the biggest sitting Buda in the world eating at a hot pot restaurant that evening. The night we all had Thai food the group rode the tram to Victoria Peak. The tram is very steep!
After the finance meeting ended on Thursday and after we visited the Buda but before dinner, we went to a fishing village called Tai O. While there we took a little boat ride to see if we could see any dolphins. Unfortunately we did not see any but it was nice to be on the water where it was at least a bit cooler.
