Saturday night we started the trek into Tahoe. Originally we were going to bypass this skiing mecca because it's so close to home, but the area had just gotten a big dump of snow and we couldn't pass it up. There's so many resorts in the area that even living so close, there were still several that we had never visited. We decided to change that. We drove out of SF when most of the traffic was asleep, and made it to the east side of Sacramento before stopping for the night. Here's where you revel in the sense of what an extended road trip means: there's no schedule, so you stop when you want to. There's no minutes ticking away, no "gotta get back tomorrow" feeling. Man, it is liberating. On this particular Saturday night, our liberation took the form of the Wal Mart parking lot.
Snicker all you'd like, this bit of knowledge is a diamond in the rough...Wal Marts all across the nation welcome RV-ers into their realm. The "No Overnight Parking" signs are absent from all Wal Marts. And though the scenery may be more along the lines of asphalt stamped with "COMPACT" rather than vistas stamped with untouched natural beauty, the campsite is free and you can't beat that.
Sunday we picked up a few supplies from our gracious host, then headed for them thar hills, which we knew held the near equivalent of gold: fresh powder. We planned to hit the slopes on Monday morning...albeit for the first time this season. (We're almost embarrased to admit this, as it is MARCH!) We found our way up to the summit chain-free in clear weather, then woke on Monday to a fine dusting of beautiful white.
Backtrack: Sunday afternoon, dump stop. For non-RV-ers, this is an essential and non-glamorous part of the deal. You take your house with you, you take your waste with you. So you've got your fresh water tank and your grey water tank and the delicately labeled black water tank. A dump station run typically involves refilling the former and eliminating as much evidence of the latter as possible. So we cruise along the highway, looking for the little sign with the little trailer with the little hose coming out the back and down into the little hole in the ground. Just as a blaring red octagon signals Stop, this little brown icon means dump.
So we spotted a sign just north of Rocklin, and headed that-a-way. A mobile-home park came into view, and the arrows pointed us confidently on. Rumbling into the classic park, we stopped at the manager's unit and were greeted through the screen door by a white barking knee-high mop and the nicest, aqua moo-moo clad mobile home super we've met so far. She took our five bucks and pointed down the way, "Just follow the arrows around this loop and pull back out this way."
With those few words, she redefined the meaning of understatement. The "loop" was a rut-filled, muddy dirt road with low-hanging trees and sharp turns...and, oh yeah, the dump leg of the loop was on a slope steep enough to make a bunny-hillers nervous! Obviously the five dollars didn't go to maintaining the dump facility...more likely it went to Camel Filters, from the scent wafting through the super's screen door.
But nevertheless, the stop served its purpose and we met some real nice folks while we waited for the fresh water tank to fill up. And we were able to overlook the fact that when we stopped at a 76 station five minutes later there was a free dump right next to the propane fill-up. BUT...I digress.
...we woke on Monday to a fine dusting of beautiful white.
Two pairs of chains (that's the truck and the trailer) went on before 7:00am and we were on to Sugar Bowl. Powder, glorious powder. The skies were overcast and there were light flurries all day, but the snow was awesome, and that was what we were there for.
This morning we hit Donner Ski Ranch, a resort with one foot nudging Sugar Bowl and the other stepping on Boreal, and had another day of great conditions. The sun even peeked out a bit in the morning, and shed some blue sky for breakfast. Donner is tiny and cheap, but with some cool backside slopes and a really fun BoarderX track. Tomorrow, if the weather holds, we're going to try on the big daddy of Tahoe: Squaw Valley U.S.A.
