After 2 hours of dancing at the Café at Market and Castro, we headed down to the Mission to see what late-night Mexican options were available. To our great delight, there was not only a Taqueria open, bright yellow sign blazing and all, but there was a perfect parking space right on the street in front of the establishment. I am such a sucker for great spaces on the street. I always seem to get lucky and zip right into them. We wandered, ears still ringing, into the place, our noses filled instantly with the irresistible aromas of cilantro and carne asada. It was a slightly bilingual experience getting our burrito but before long we were chowing down on authentic Mexican deliciousness. Burritos are an amazing food to me, in that while there seems to be infinite variations of the creation, every single one manages to be overwhelmingly delicious. We sucked down the rest of our orchata and drove off into the night.

The next morning, we woke up and in short order, wanted food again. Not to worry, since Silicon Valley seems to have the whole restaurant thing covered. We chose to hit up the Whole Foods grocery store for some customizable lunch options. I got a mouth watering chicken breast sandwich on ciabatta, complete with pesto, fresh mozzarella, tomatoes, and spinach. Dan put together one of the most diverse salads I’ve ever seen (everything from olives to mango!) and we headed back to my place to fill our tummies on the picnic table in my sunny backyard. I grabbed a bottle of merlot from my room and we had ourselves a pretty lovely lunch if I do say so myself. 2 or 3 hours later, we dragged ourselves out of our food comas and drove over to Shoreline Park. This park is interesting in that it is built upon a retired landfill packed with decades of San Francisco’s trash. At some point in the last decade or so, the city of Mountain View decided to cover the whole thing up with dirt and build a golf course and a 50-acre salt water lake. I must say, it was a great idea, and unless you are really looking, you could never tell that this wasn’t just some bayside recreation area that had been around for decades.

We decided to rent a rowboat and paddle out into the lake for an hour to enjoy the sunny weather. It was pretty windy, but thankfully I was given the responsibility of sitting and looking pretty while Dan took care of paddling our boat upwind. He happened to have spent a few years as crew team captain in high school though, so he was up for the challenge. Bouncing around the lake, while pretty unremarkable, was nice simply for the opportunity to be out on the water breathing the fresh air, after being cooped up in cubicle-land all week. I took the downwind shift back towards the boathouse and we were heading back into town before long.

For dinner we ate in Mountain View at a vegan Chinese restaurant. Now those of you who know something about my eating habits are aware that I really have no interest in vegetarianism and that whole school of thought. While I certainly respect people’s choices as well as their reasons for making them, I enjoy a big steak or a beef burrito more than anything and at this point have no intentions of giving them up. However, this restaurant gets my wholehearted approval and here’s why. Basically, we all have no idea what is in regular Chinese food to begin with, so while the idea of vegan Chinese might sound a little scary to some, I am here to say that I couldn’t tell a bit of difference between the fake meat we were eating and the mystery meat served in the regular stuff. With that said, I almost feel safer chowing down on some fake bean curd chicken at this place than the sketchy but real meat found down the street at a dozen oriental restaurants. It didn’t hurt that the food was quite reasonably priced and that the staff were more than friendly to us the entire time.

Stomachs full yet again, we headed back to my house for a lazy evening of movies, red zinfandel, and earth hour. For those of you interested in wine, I cannot say enough good things about the 2004 Renwood Old Vine Zin from the great state of California. It is big and oaky but with plenty of fruit underneath to keep your entire tongue happy. It is not so dry that it can’t be enjoyed by itself, although I really like it best with a plate of Brie and Camembert! Out here it is only $15 a bottle and maybe a few bucks more in the east.

Now that my wine review is over, on to Sunday! I have just one word – Tahoe! I reluctantly rolled out of bed to the sound of my alarm at 5:15 AM, hours before the sun would be rising. I moved slowly as I always do when I am on 4 hours of sleep. I was also coming down with a little cold but I managed to convince myself that Tahoe was not something I’d be able to do any old time, so I better get myself going. In the unsatisfyingly dim light of my eco-friendly 7-watt compact fluorescent bulb, I pulled on my tight fitting ski thermals and then sweatpants and a sweatshirt. Socks and shoes followed and I was out the door before six.

I cruised across town to pick up my friend Eric who was riding up with me. Eric, who I know from my floor freshmen year, coincidentally is also on co-op from RIT in Sunnyvale and is working for AMD right down the street from my office. I found his apartment in the darkness that still enveloped the valley and we were on the freeway before too long. We made it out past Fremont before the sun began to rise and blind us as we headed east. I was really having a tough time staying awake, so we got off the highway a little past Sacramento for some breakfast and some Red Bull. We pulled into the Wendy’s parking lot, not at that concerned with the health risks of fast food consumption, and walked inside. Lucky for us, Wendy’s had recently created a breakfast menu, so I ordered myself some tasty looking French toast sticks and hash browns. I practically inhaled the food in front of me and we were out in no time at all. We stopped again for 10 gallons of gas and two 16 ounce cans of Red Bull (yes, they now make them double sized!) and we were doing 80 mph again in no time.

Route 50 is the preferred course for heading towards south Lake Tahoe, so that is the exit we took. Almost immediately, we began climbing in altitude, causing me to all but abandon fifth gear as a means of forward propulsion. We were alerted of our altitude by signs on the highway every 1000 miles, and I was amazed at how quickly they went by. We stopped only once to relieve ourselves quickly in the woods and by 10 we had made it to Sierra-At-Tahoe, our skiing destination, at roughly 7000 feet of elevation. Let me just comment that this was the first time the Mazda had been to such extreme altitudes and it appeared to be handling it like a champ. I was proud.

I put on the rest of my gear and headed into the rental area to see what I could get in the way of boots and skis. Unfortunately the place had already sold all of this year’s demo equipment so I was stuck with the regular rentals. Ugh. I try to stay positive in this blog for the most part, but the skiing was, in many ways, less than fabulous. I won’t complain about the conditions too much, because ice and slush are really just a part of life when skiing at relatively low altitudes in the end of March. And the skis weren’t horrific, but certainly seemed a lot softer and less adept at carving than my own, which are in a closet in Maryland right now. The lack of edging ability and overall grip on the mountain created a situation where I was doing more of a swiveling motion back and forth across the ice in an attempt to control my speedy descent. And whereas my boards are usually well waxed and practically self-accelerate on flat areas, these babies were stuck in glue. I couldn’t let myself spend the whole day complaining though, and in a pretty short time I had mostly adapted to the conditions and the gear, finding ways to enjoy myself, even though my snowboarding counterparts were totally smoking me down the mountain.

My optimism paid off and I really had a great time the rest of the afternoon. We skied all the way till 4, stopping only for the obligatory chili and cheese in a sourdough bread bowl for lunch. After packing our gear up and heading back to 50, we decided to take a little detour. Having driven four hours, we couldn’t just head back to the valley without actually seeing Lake Tahoe! We were treated to a very scenic ride down towards the water and before long, we reached the shore. I was excited to see the lake, since it is so huge among all those mountains. I was told that most of the volume of the lake is completely natural, with only about 10 feet of depth due to one single man-made dam. Pretty remarkable if you ask me.

It was cold so back in the car we went, and westward we drove. I had a wonderful time losing all that altitude, passing RV’s and slow moving vehicles every chance I got as I navigated the winding mountain road (take it easy my dear parents, there was a passing lane!). We reached the highway with ease and sat in what I now know was post-spring break traffic. Things eventually sped up and we were back in Sunnyvale by 9:30. I dropped Eric off and headed to my house, thinking only of a quick and carb-heavy meal and my very comfortable bed. I succeeded in finding both and before too long, I was passed out and dreaming of another action packed (and exhausting) weekend in the west!