Oct. Tech Team Meeting & Day Trip to Lake Tahoe
This weekend I had traveled up to Sacramento, as I have since 2005 for a tech team meeting. I had spent night with Sarah and we both spent the day in the Lake Tahoe Basin. This is the blog of this weekend.
I had to wake up earl y this Saturday. 5:00 am. It took me a good 20 mins to get the courage to get out of bed. I was awake the night before till midnight watching adult swim and packing. I got dressed, went downstairs, and went right to my Starbucks double shot. With time, I slowly woke up. I started looking around for food to eat, but nothing seemed too exciting to eat. I would have to cook something, which I didn't have time for. I left the house an hour and fifthteen minute before my flight, which made me nervous because I always like to be at the airport an hour before my flight takes off (when I dont have luggage to check in). I got to Ontario Airport in about 30 mins, and I had power walked over to the temminal. It was dark during this time, and I wasn't used o being out of the house before the sunrise. By time I got through security, the sun began to brighten the sky. I boarded the plane, and decided to sit on the right side of the plan (normally sit on the left) because I wanted to see the sunrise, and luckily I didn't miss it. Got a photo of it too. My flight took off at 7:30, and I landed in Sacramento at 8:40.
Normally, for the past few years, I had my friend and co tech team member Daniel pick me up from the airport, since he lives in Rancho Codova. This time was different. I had rented a car for the first time. Let's rewind back a little bit. A few weeks ago, Sarah's mom had taken her car away. I had always tried to figure out why but never got an answer from Sarah other than she doesn't know either. Last weekend, I was up in Sacramento for the State 4-H Leaders Council Meeing. I was to fly up Friday night, meet up with Mary Ann Smith ( mother of my best friend Mathew Smith), stay in a hotel that night in Downtown Sacramento, go to the meeting, and Sarah would pick me up and we would hang till I flew home Sunday night. Because of her car being take away, I had to change my flights to leave Sat. Night, which cost me $100 to do. For this weekend, the only option was for me to rent a car, which I didn't want to do, because of the extra charges I would have to pay for being under the age of 25. So for the first time I had rented a car, and it was a Ford Fiesta. The car was small for my tastes, and doesn't have much power. Great gas mileage though. Took me 20 minutes to figure out how to use the radio. One thing I didn't like was that it was hard to know how fast you were going by feel. What feels like I am going 75 miles an hour, from driving my car, I was driving at 90 miles an hour. I had to keep my eye on the speed dial the entire time to make sure I wasn't speeding. I would have used cruise control to help that out, but the car didn't come with that option.
Anyway, I headed to the State 4-H Office in Davis. First made a stop at Starbucks to get a iced grande pumpkin latte and a sausage breakfast sandwich, then drove to the office. I arrived at 9:30. Daniel was already there waiting outside. We just chilled while we waited for our adviser, Steven Worker, to arrive so we can be let into the building. The meeting started at ten, and we worked on all the general stuff. Business stuff before lunch. Mostly on the California 4-H Leaders' Forum (SLF) that is in two weeks. At lunch, Steven had to leave, for he was moving, so I was placed in charge for the rest of the meeting. After lunch, two workshops were presented to the team as practice runs to prepare for SLF. One of the workshops was mine, which I taught about how to use Google Maps, and how to build maps with Google Maps. Also talked about Geographical Information Systems near the end. During the workshops, we set up a web cam and did a live streaming of the workshops to test out ustream.tv. Our idea was to do live video streaming at SLF this year, so we had to test it out. The meeting ended at 4. Daniel and I were the last to leave. He and I ended up hanging out for a while in the parking lot. If I didn't have to go and drive out to Auburn to get to Sarah, I would have totally chilled with Daniel for awhile, because he had nothing to do for awhile, and he and I have grown to become friends.
I left the state office at 4:45 ish, and drove the hour and a half out to Auburn. Sarah is living with a co-worker for a few weeks, since she doesn't have a place to live. I picked her up, we had dinner at a local restaurant called Taco Tree (Their hot sauce is amazing), and went shopping to a few stores. Afterwards, we went back to the apartment she was staying at, and just chilled for the rest of the night. While we were just chilling, we were thinking about what we could do the next day, and I through out the idea of going to Tahoe, since I was already half way there from Sacramento. Sarah had never been to Lake Tahoe, so we made plans to go out to explore the north shores of Lake Tahoe.
We woke up early in the morning, well what was early for us. Woke up at 8:00. We got ready, and headed out out to Lake Tahoe. We first stopped at Starbucks, because I knew I was going to need a wake up in order to drive the long distance. It took us just over an hour to drive into the Lake Tahoe Basin. When we arrived, I had turned towards Nevada, and we had left the state. We first stopped at a vista point that was located on the northeast shore of the lake. Got to see some great views of the lake, and the mountains on the other side. We first walked down to the shore, which was all build granite boulders. It was very beautiful. The weather outside was bright and sunny, but only a high of 50. When at the shore, we climbed over a few rocks to get to the water. I was amazed when I looked at the water. It was very clear. Not sure that I have ever seen a lake where I can look down and see the bottom form the shore. I felt as if there should have been a large amount of fish in the area that I could look at, but sadly there were no fish. After a few moments, we had continued down the Nevada Lake Tahoe Shore. Just a few miles down the road from the vista point, was the Sand Harbor Nevada State Park. We stopped there to explore. Had to pay $7 to get in. Here was a mixture of sandy beaches and boulders in the water. At the beach, we noticed there were about 6 + scuba divers exploring what was below the Lake surface. It looked like they were taking a type of environmental study class or something. I kinda got jealous, and really wished I knew how to scuba dive, because I wanted to explore and see what the lake looks like below the surface. I can imagine it being beautiful, and with how clear the water is, can probably see a lot of many things. We explored the shore. The sand on the beach was interesting. Close to the water, you saw large grains of sand, about half the size of a pebble. A little bit farther away from the water, you had normal type sand that you are used to, like at a normal beach in southern California. Sarah at this time had started to sniff the bark of a pine tree near where we were standing, and she had said it was a Jeffery Pine. I had never heard of that pine, but she had told me to smell the bark. I was shocked when I has smelt the scent of vanilla. It seems that Jeffery Pines have the smell of Vanilla. I thought that was amazing. We attempted to climb some of the large boulders south of the beach, but they were too big and positioned in ways in which we couldn't get to the tops of them. It was disappointing, because I really wanted to sit at the top of one of these rocks and just enjoy the quit sounds of the Sierras, with the water gently crashing on the rocks and sandy beaches of Sand Harbor. It are times like this that make me wish I was thinner, because I always think that my weight and size is keeping me from doing things like getting to the top of these rocks. After a few moments, we left the rocks, and headed back to the car. We noticed we still had plenty of time to kill, so we decided to drive off to South Lake Tahoe.
The drive seemed a lot shorter that what I would have expected. We probably would have been faster if we didn't have some extremely slow drivers. Everyone seemed to drive real slow around the entire lake. At first I thought it was just a Nevada thing, but it was the same situation on the California side. The drive to south lake was just beautiful. You had the views of the lake, the number of tall pine trees, small groups of Birch Trees between the tall pine trees which were filled with beautiful fall colors of red, yellow, and orange. It was very very relaxing and beautiful. When we arrived in South Lake Tahoe, we parked at the Railey's Grocery Store Complex, and walked around. We looked at the stores, the Wyland Gallery, and had lunch at Baja Fresh. While we were at the Wyland Gallery, I had mentioned to a guy my favorite animal is the Killer Whale, and that is what attracts me to Wylands art. He started showing me different art pieces, mainly statues, and talked about prices, why they are rare, and different payment options as if I was going to buy one of them. I found it strange because I was not even dressed to look like I have money. After I had mentioned I was just a poor college student, and dreaming of someday owning something of his, like the Orca Family Table (See other blog on past trip to Lake Tahoe). After having lunch, we had left South Lake Tahoe, and drove up the California side of the lake. We stopped at Emerald Bay to look at the view. There was a castle type thing at the shore of the bay, and it was an mile hike down. Sarah really wanted to go but I was in fear of not having time, so we didn't go. After stopping at Emerald Bay, we drove back up to Truckee and headed back to Auburn.
When we got back to Auburn, we had gone shopping for a few things. I offered to take her around so she can buy the things she needed since she didn't have a car. After an hour, I said my goodbyes, and I headed back down to the Sacramento Airport to fly home. This was a nice weekend, that was very relaxing and long. Of course the next day would be super awesome as well, since it will be Halloween, but that is the next blog post. This will be the last adventure that Sarah and I will have as a couple. I started writing this blog before we broke up a few days after the trip. See the blog post that is after the Halloween blog (not yet written) to read about the break up.
Normally, for the past few years, I had my friend and co tech team member Daniel pick me up from the airport, since he lives in Rancho Codova. This time was different. I had rented a car for the first time. Let's rewind back a little bit. A few weeks ago, Sarah's mom had taken her car away. I had always tried to figure out why but never got an answer from Sarah other than she doesn't know either. Last weekend, I was up in Sacramento for the State 4-H Leaders Council Meeing. I was to fly up Friday night, meet up with Mary Ann Smith ( mother of my best friend Mathew Smith), stay in a hotel that night in Downtown Sacramento, go to the meeting, and Sarah would pick me up and we would hang till I flew home Sunday night. Because of her car being take away, I had to change my flights to leave Sat. Night, which cost me $100 to do. For this weekend, the only option was for me to rent a car, which I didn't want to do, because of the extra charges I would have to pay for being under the age of 25. So for the first time I had rented a car, and it was a Ford Fiesta. The car was small for my tastes, and doesn't have much power. Great gas mileage though. Took me 20 minutes to figure out how to use the radio. One thing I didn't like was that it was hard to know how fast you were going by feel. What feels like I am going 75 miles an hour, from driving my car, I was driving at 90 miles an hour. I had to keep my eye on the speed dial the entire time to make sure I wasn't speeding. I would have used cruise control to help that out, but the car didn't come with that option.Anyway, I headed to the State 4-H Office in Davis. First made a stop at Starbucks to get a iced grande pumpkin latte and a sausage breakfast sandwich, then drove to the office. I arrived at 9:30. Daniel was already there waiting outside. We just chilled while we waited for our adviser, Steven Worker, to arrive so we can be let into the building. The meeting started at ten, and we worked on all the general stuff. Business stuff before lunch. Mostly on the California 4-H Leaders' Forum (SLF) that is in two weeks. At lunch, Steven had to leave, for he was moving, so I was placed in charge for the rest of the meeting. After lunch, two workshops were presented to the team as practice runs to prepare for SLF. One of the workshops was mine, which I taught about how to use Google Maps, and how to build maps with Google Maps. Also talked about Geographical Information Systems near the end. During the workshops, we set up a web cam and did a live streaming of the workshops to test out ustream.tv. Our idea was to do live video streaming at SLF this year, so we had to test it out. The meeting ended at 4. Daniel and I were the last to leave. He and I ended up hanging out for a while in the parking lot. If I didn't have to go and drive out to Auburn to get to Sarah, I would have totally chilled with Daniel for awhile, because he had nothing to do for awhile, and he and I have grown to become friends.
I left the state office at 4:45 ish, and drove the hour and a half out to Auburn. Sarah is living with a co-worker for a few weeks, since she doesn't have a place to live. I picked her up, we had dinner at a local restaurant called Taco Tree (Their hot sauce is amazing), and went shopping to a few stores. Afterwards, we went back to the apartment she was staying at, and just chilled for the rest of the night. While we were just chilling, we were thinking about what we could do the next day, and I through out the idea of going to Tahoe, since I was already half way there from Sacramento. Sarah had never been to Lake Tahoe, so we made plans to go out to explore the north shores of Lake Tahoe.
The drive seemed a lot shorter that what I would have expected. We probably would have been faster if we didn't have some extremely slow drivers. Everyone seemed to drive real slow around the entire lake. At first I thought it was just a Nevada thing, but it was the same situation on the California side. The drive to south lake was just beautiful. You had the views of the lake, the number of tall pine trees, small groups of Birch Trees between the tall pine trees which were filled with beautiful fall colors of red, yellow, and orange. It was very very relaxing and beautiful. When we arrived in South Lake Tahoe, we parked at the Railey's Grocery Store Complex, and walked around. We looked at the stores, the Wyland Gallery, and had lunch at Baja Fresh. While we were at the Wyland Gallery, I had mentioned to a guy my favorite animal is the Killer Whale, and that is what attracts me to Wylands art. He started showing me different art pieces, mainly statues, and talked about prices, why they are rare, and different payment options as if I was going to buy one of them. I found it strange because I was not even dressed to look like I have money. After I had mentioned I was just a poor college student, and dreaming of someday owning something of his, like the Orca Family Table (See other blog on past trip to Lake Tahoe). After having lunch, we had left South Lake Tahoe, and drove up the California side of the lake. We stopped at Emerald Bay to look at the view. There was a castle type thing at the shore of the bay, and it was an mile hike down. Sarah really wanted to go but I was in fear of not having time, so we didn't go. After stopping at Emerald Bay, we drove back up to Truckee and headed back to Auburn.
When we got back to Auburn, we had gone shopping for a few things. I offered to take her around so she can buy the things she needed since she didn't have a car. After an hour, I said my goodbyes, and I headed back down to the Sacramento Airport to fly home. This was a nice weekend, that was very relaxing and long. Of course the next day would be super awesome as well, since it will be Halloween, but that is the next blog post. This will be the last adventure that Sarah and I will have as a couple. I started writing this blog before we broke up a few days after the trip. See the blog post that is after the Halloween blog (not yet written) to read about the break up.
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