this is me in a forest
8/6/11 @ Big Bend/Loch Leven, Tahoe National Forest
Filed in photos | Tagged with tahoe | Comment (0)and i’ll live while i’m young
this past weekend was a double header of camping in the Tahoe National Forest (specifically not disco-camping) and then to South Lake Tahoe (CA/NV line) for to see Phish.
superfuntimes with the crew Friday-Sunday in the forest, including mountain hiking, alpine lake swimming, and lighting things on fire. i mean, it really Wasn’t A Big Deal so there’s not much more to say except that i <3 my friends and all their mischief and merrymaking.
then off to South lake where we chilled, had some hike and beach time with JaSbo, and caught up on our sleep. Tuesday arrived and after some beaching, had lunch and started to prepare for the night’s show (we only had tix for 1st of 2 nights). unfortunately, what i ate for lunch disagreed with me IMMENSELY and i could barely walk across the street back to the hotel i was so doubled over in pain. i have a history of meals violently disagreeing with my stomach, even if it’s something i’ve eaten plenty of times before, but usually what happens is i get immediately nauseated, vomit, and it’s all over in an hour. this was more of a gut clenching thing, where every muscle of my digestive tract seized so much i could not stand up, and went on for 2.5-3 hours and at 4:30 i thought there was NO WAY i was making it to the show (doors at 5, show at 6:30) as i could not even walk to get there. this made me very very sad. but i was determined! and forced everything out of my body that i could. and by 5:30 i could stand up and soldiered on down to the state line. sad that there was almost zero pre-party for our little crew due to this, but whatcanyoudo.
the arena was the smallest venue i’ve ever seen Phish (this was my 20th show! first show 11/9/96 @ auburn hills, most recent show 8/5/09 @ shoreline) and i was STOKED about that. not a bad seat in the house, and we could get as close as we wanted. before the show started i walked around and was able to find old PB tour friends Stardog, John & Kristin Labonte, and Schlegel! greetings all around. and then the show started, outdoor in a small sunny venue surrounded by alpines. NICE.
< phish mode > first set was KILLER. oh i had forgotten how much i love Rift: “the passion that sparked me one terrible night / and shocked and persuaded my soul to ignite”.
i was en route to/from the bathroom for much of David Bowie but that did not stop me from enjoying it thoroughly.
by the second set however i was fading, having little food energy inside me and feeling a bit destroyed by the whole experience. i zoned out through much of it, but in a good way. all evening there had been people with these fluorescent green paper rockets on sticks, waving them all around. someone must’ve made and brought literally hundreds of them and handed them out. i had no idea what they represented or what they were for, until, in the middle of the second set, the band responded and Paige on piano sang Rocket Man. for the first time EVAR. woo!
the encore closer of Squirming Coil was really awesome, and that final piano solo echoing through the trees was really just sublime. </ phish mode >
we stuck around briefly to see if we had the energy for any of the after parties (even though it was a Tuesday, this is a 2 day run, so most people are staying for both nights and partying right through in between), most likely being FreQ Nasty, but i determined i was 1. STARVING and 2. EXHAUSTED and needed to eat and go to bed. so in the end, it was maybe the least “epic” Phish show i’ve ever attended, as there was almost no partying on my part and i went to bed before midnight (can we say “aging hippie”?). but still: as nourishing as always. and since i am currently wearing a phish t-shirt and sweatpants, some regression might have occurred.
But who can unlearn all the facts that I’ve learned
As I sat in their chairs and my synapses burned
And the torture of chalk dust collects on my tongue
Thoughts follow my vision and dance in the sun
All my vasoconstrictors they come slowly undone
Can’t this wait till im old?
Can’t I live while I’m young?
and now: the Man Burns in 24 days. holy crap.
Filed in events, music, phish | Tagged with NBD, tahoe | Comment (0)imprint/POV
imprint.jpg, originally uploaded by amyleblancdotcom
what i learned in tahoe
growing up in the northern michigan woods in a home that did not have central heating (wood stove), on a private road that, during the several months of winter, often got snowed in until some neighbor went out and plowed it, driving through blizzards to get to work, pipes that froze (melted snow for bathing!), and without all the fancy NorthFace gear that kids have nowadays (have you ever worn knitted mittens? they are totally useless, and just get wet and then freeze to become icicles on your hands.), i have a fair amount of post-traumatic stress around winter. i get really scared of it. the potential for it being funtimes vs. cold miserableness seems very low to me. this is much different than my california and southern friends who ONLY have memories of funtimes in the snow, because their only interaction with it is ski vacations. but for me, all i can remember is how cold, difficult and what a pain in the ass winter was, and i haven’t had enough ski vacations to quite get over that yet.
so generally, because i’m not into the downhill sports (my skiiing in Chile this summer was an exception, not the rule), when i think about going to tahoe, all i imagine is getting stuck in a blizzard on highway 80 and having to sleep in the car (which happened to our friends the weekend before), frostbitten fingers and toes, and feeling trapped inside a cabin. usually late november in tahoe is brisk late-autumn with some dustings of snow that melt off in the morning but you can still go hiking kind of weather, and that is what i envisioned when we made the plans to go up there for Thanksgiving weekend. so as mentioned, i was slightly apprehensive once we learned what the weather would be like. jay, however, was SO EXCITED.
wednesday eve, the 5 of us (stephen, nicole, whit, jay, me) had a delish dinner @ Wally’s Cafe and left oakland late to avoid traffic, and then our drive up was fast and on dry roads. above 3,000 feet the unseasonably large snowbanks sparkled in the moonlight. we arrived shortly after midnight, and because it’s so early in the year and the not all of the services are open, we had to have the SnowCat – a tank-like vehicle with a passenger cabin – pick us (and all our stuff) up and take us to the ski house, which sits right on the slopes. so once you’re there, you are THERE. no driving anywhere to get to where you want to go. *amazing*. and then we stayed up until 3am drinking wine.
Thanksgiving morning it was GORGEOUS at Sugarbowl – still cold, but sunny and clear and piles of white fluffy snow (see current conditions here). jay and whit got up early and went to hit the slopes ASAP, and nicole, stephen and i hung out in the apartment – which is the bottom floor of the larger cabin, and sort of dungeon-like in that there are low ceilings and few windows – until mid-afternoon and then went for a long walk on the cross country trails and had some cocktails at the bar. despite my PTSD i enjoyed it quite a lot, and we frolicked. for Thanksgiving dinner we cooked a hodgepodge of items in the tiny kitchen – baked mac and cheese, fondue, roasted vegetables – and then hung out, continually marvelling at the slowness of time after it gets dark at 5:00 and enjoyed eachother’s company.
Friday morning was similarly gorgeous, and after the other 3 left to ski, stephen and i both debated if/when we might also go skiing/boarding as it seemed sort of like we should (we were RIGHT THERE), but neither of us were super motivated to 1. pay the lift tickets and 2. hurt ourselves, which were possibilities. part of the reason i’m not into downhill is that i’m pretty terrified of hurting myself. almost everyone i know who does downhill has been hurt pretty badly at some point, and given that i’ve already been dealing with constant body pain for over a year now, the idea of doing something that could possibly hurt myself even more seems ludicrous. so, it being a gorgeous day we went and sat on the deck near the bar and chatted. later, when the other 3 went into the bar, the bartender, a local friendly fellow, asked “Where are Cosmo and the White Russian?”, referring to us by the drinks we’d ordered the day before. quaint!
then came saturday, when we awoke to a fairly significant snowfall that kept going all day long. everyone else decided to “hit the pow”, and i continued my streak of sleeping in and then laying in the bed watching movies. Lost in Translation is really a great film, although i find ScarJo to be really flat. i don’t buy that she’s a hyperintelligent Yale Philosophy grad at all. jay came back sometime after noon and i put on my snowclothes and walked the 100 yards to the bar, met up with everyone for a drink, and then went back. i can bring myself to enjoy a sunny gorgeous day in the snow; in my world, blizzards are really not fun, but they were all RAVING about how much powder they were shredding all day.
after dark, another long evening of movies (Let the Right One In, touted as “the best vampire movie ever”, really didn’t do it for me) and fondue and wine. the amount of calories in cheese and wine consumed over the course of this weekend was pretty astonishing, and we didn’t even consume all we’d brought.
sunday morning it was back to clear sunny skies, and now about 2 more feet of snow. stephen and i stayed inside for the morning, then jay came back and we all packed up our stuff and went for a walk while whit+nicole skiied more. we investigated the car situation, and found it buried in the parking lot. luckily, it’s light dry snow (powder) and didn’t take too much effort to dig out.
just before leaving, in a brave act of full immersion, whit flopped into the snow bank in his regular clothes. we hit the road just before dark, stopped at Ikeda’s for dinner, and were home in decent time.
i do sort of regret not skiing, if only because it provides spectacular views from the lifts and tops of runs. that was the main reason i skiied in chile – i didn’t want to miss out on any gorgeousness. but without that stress – physically and mentally – i was able to decompress quite a bit, and after a long weekend of sleeping and eating as much as i wanted to, when i got back sunday night i felt great. rested. satiated. and THAT i was definitely thankful for.
this photo was an accident
but that color blue is my favorite color. i call it “tahoe sky blue”.
more photos of our lovely snowy thanksgiving weekend here.
Filed in photos | Tagged with tahoe | Comment (0)clear fragility
yesterday the headwind was so strong that i thought maybe gravity had increased overnight. i was pedaling so much harder than usual, yet barely moving. it was psychedelically slow, almost unbelievable, and when i finally dismounted my legs were like jello.
this morning was bright and clear with less of a wind, but cold like we have not felt since last winter. i had to stop to rub my hands together, my fingers numb, and as i did so, i noted the birds flocking in the water at Aquatic Park. how can those birds stand what must be frigid water, while i stand here with 4 layers, freezing my ass off?
today we prepare for a trip up the mountains, where it snowed 8-10 feet in one day and overnight lows are below zero. i am not prepared for this; i had envisioned crisp late-autumn days and hikes on muddy trails and maybe some flurries and frost in the morning, just enough to be enchanting. i did not envision huge piles of snow and subzero temperatures, as if it were february. i pray we do not get delayed by road closures or accidents, and once we arrive, if this weather holds i do not intend to leave the cabin or get out my pajamas until sunday.
have a safe and happy thanksgiving everyone. be grateful.
…snow can wait i forgot my mittens…
Filed in autobiographical | Tagged with bicycling, NaBloPoMo, tahoe | Comment (0)
