Lake Tahoe, Day 2

   The gondola and lifts at Heavenly were closed again; they made the call at 10 am. Brett was standing by the gondola waiting to hear the verdict, and talking to Ike (who works in Tamarack Lodge, a restaurant on top of the mountain). And Ike offered to let us ride along with him & his friend Jesse up to Northstar! It took about an hour to drive up there, but it went quickly with the beautiful views of the lake. We had a mega-quick lunch at Subway and were on the gondola by 1:30. We rode til almost 4:30 (the lifts closed at 4:00, so we were sweeping the trails—the last run of the day! I was able to ride down at least 5 times—I kind of lost count. Once my muscles remembered what they heck they were supposed to be doing and I switched on my iPod, I really got into the zone and was linking turns and having a blast, accompanied by Rihanna, Dorrough, Coldplay... What. A. Blast.
   Ike and Jesse drove us back down to Heavenly, we thanked them & said we'd look for them once the gondola opened up, & then we were off to change and find food. Ike had lived in Thailand for a year and a half, and recommended Nakorn Thai (west of the ski village). We had a glass of wine, hopped the Blue Go bus and for $2 we made the 20 minute trek. Ike was not wrong: the restaurant was EXCELLENT, and our server had an equally good—and very dry—sense of humor. So fun. We shared a big bowl of Tom Yum Goong soup with tomato, ginger, lime and lemongrass, with HUGE shrimp. And I sampled their pad Thai... And promptly downed half of the huge platter. So good! Then we hopped the bus back to Forest (nearly freezing during the 10 minute wait at the stop, enjoyed a glass of wine (well, I did. The boys had beer). Then it was off to rest...