Check out this video at the 2:00 mark. WHOO HOO! I'm not sure how I'm going to enjoy this awesome prize (2 nights at each & every one of the 35 Joie de Vivre hotels over a 2 year period), but your suggestions are welcome in the comments section.
A few weeks ago I was asked if I wanted to play roller derby by a guy who's in the swim class I coach. While I first thought it was because I have big shoulders (good for shoving?) it was more because I play sports. Apparently the team is always looking for more players with athletic backgrounds. His wife is on the team, and he figured that since I have bleached hair and silver Dr. Marten boots, I'd maybe be more interested in it than some of the more jam-band loving hippie types that tend to populate mountain towns, who might not find appeal in derby.
I got on skates for the first time in 20+ years on Tuesday, and was surprised by how quickly it came back and how much damn fun it was. Today's practice was only my second, but instead of being relegated to wobbling around the perimeter of the track I was invited to try to keep up with the Tahoe Derby Dames as they practiced for their upcoming bout next Saturday. This involved skating fast around the track as they scrimmaged, pushed and occasionally fell. I skated relatively fast, but avoided the whole pushing and falling thing, as that's a bit beyond my comfort zone.
To be honest I'm more scared of the tiny shorts that comprise the team uniform than the actually contact sport part of it. I fall skiing and mountain biking, but I don't tend to embrace tight things on my bottom half. Heck, even my speedo swimsuit is baggy. So that will my mental hurdle to overcome.
This week is national bike to work week, an event that's feted in the Tahoe region with locally sponsored giveaways and freebies for cyclists. What this means is that for one week there are a lot more people riding their bikes, and many of them are as clueless on two wheels as they are on four wheels.
Suffice to say even with heightened caution and observation I'm still seeing extraordinary examples of stupidity. Like the group yesterday who were riding 4 abreast on a road, ignoring the fact that they were blocking cars and other cyclists from passing. Who then yelled at me when I passed them.
Or the guy riding against traffic (without a helmet, as apparently he had no brain) who nearly hit me, despite the fact that it was a straight road.
So it goes without saying that I'm really looking forward to *next* week when all these folks return to driving their cars again, leaving the bike lanes free once again. That peace of mind is well worth paying for my coffee.
With all the issues I've been having recently with newly diagnosed asthma and other breathing challenges, I've been joking with various friends (or so I thought) that if only I'd quit my pack a day habit, these issues would likely go away.
So today while huffing & puffing my way up the trail with my new-ish friend K, a very fit and fairly young woman who pretty much rides up vertical cliff faces without breaking a sweat, she asked me about my asthma and if I'd managed to quit smoking yet.
Due to the shortage of oxygen in my brain at that moment (I was, after all, riding a mountain bike up a steep trail), I didn't quite understand what she was asking. But when I did it made me feel a little better. She may be superhuman on a bike (and pretty much any other sport) but I apparently have the drier sense of humor.
Nice to see that I excel at something still, even if it has nothing to do with the many outdoor activities I try to embrace.
I'm not one to normally celebrate Cinco de Mayo, as I've always seen it as another drinking in the U.S. (a la St. Patrick's Day). However, as part of the conversational Spanish class I'm taking at the local community college, we had a mini-celebration last week, and everyone had to bring a relevant dish. I figured that there would be many bags of chips & jars of salsa, so I wanted to come up with something a bit more original.
Since I had given a presentation on Mexican chocolate the week before, I had two near full containers of Ibarra and Abuelita chocolate. While the latter, a Nestle product, has a long list of non-organic sounding ingredients, the Ibarra is made of things you can pronounce (and actually tastes a bit nicer on its own). With all this chocolate, I figured I could make brownies. Most recipes I have call for cocoa, so I did some online research and found a scaled down version of the Barefoot Contessa's brownies that didn't require an enormous sheet pan.
Despite trying to account for baking at elevation and the differences in using Mexican chocolate instead of unsweetened, the brownies came out more fudgelike than brownielike. The altitude, crappy oven, copious amounts of butter, lack of flour & baking times might have affected the outcome. So I quickly renamed them 'Mexican chocolate bites' and my classmates, none the wiser, devoured them.
Mexican Chocolate Bites (adapted from the Barefoot Contessa)
2 sticks butter
6 ounces Ibarra chocolate
6 ounces unsweetened chocolate (I used Lindts 85% cocoa version, as I had no bakers chocolate)
3 eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/2 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
Preheat oven to 350. Place rack in center of oven, grease & flour a 9x13 inch pan.
Melt chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl over a pot of simmering water. Let cool slightly. In a large bowl whisk eggs, vanilla & sugar. Whisk chocolate mixture into egg mixture.
In medium bowl blend flour, baking powder and salt. Add to chocolate mixture. Pour into pan and smooth to the edges. Bake for 20-25 minutes until inserted toothpick comes out clear - do not overbake. Allow to cool before cutting into squares.
We had hoped to spend this past weekend huntin' for corn snow up around Tioga Pass, but the forecasted precip did arrive, and came in wet enough to encourage us to hit Mammoth for some resort skiing instead.
While we knew it would be a wet storm, we didn't factor in the ridiculous winds that kept most of the mountain shut and made visibility optional. We skied anyway, but quit midday when goretex layers had become saturated, and headed to our digs at June Lake, where the weather was windy but not so wet. Since neither of us had really walked around the town of June Lake, we figured a faux-urban hike would be a way to see parts of the area we tend to overlook for the more exciting hiking trails of the nearby Ansel Adams Wilderness.
In doing so we discovered a bit of history - June Lake, like many other Eastern Sierra towns, had a mining history. Its history was a mere 5 years (1924-29) but resulted in a fair bit of ore from the various shafts located in the slope above Gull Lake. Who knew?
Coupled with the first pilgrimage of the season to the Whoa Nellie Deli, where we were rewarded with amazing vistas of clouds and the Sierra Wave along with our fish tacos and mango margaritas, it ended up being a lovely escape from Tahoe.
