EDC Weekend ‘06

In my true posting fashion… this post is a whole week late, and will probably be way to long
The weekend of the 8th - 10th of this month was the third weekend in a row that I’ve been gone on vacation, but this was probably the best one yet. I’m actually writing this from class (yes… I’m paying attention too).

Anyway, this weekend was my company vacation in Tahoe. Just about every year Electrical Design Consultants takes all the employees and a guest somewhere for a weekend. Usually it’s Tahoe, matter of fact only once has it been anywhere else and that was the year I started when we went to Vegas.

The vacation started Friday, which we all had off so that we could easily drive up there in the morning. I had asked Melinda if she wanted to join me, but she was going to be in North Carolina for auditions (hmm, need to call her and find out how those went). So instead of going up by myself or trying to keep up with Joe in bachelor mode all weekend I asked Kerry if she wanted to join me because she had been before and knew what to expect. Anyway, back to Friday. I meet up with Kerry at her house Friday morning and we both headed up the hill. I made a stop at my parents to drop off a few things first and chatted with my dad for a few before continuing on.

We had brunch at Mel’s Diner in Placerville which was nice, but that place is really starting to fall apart :(. I think we finally ended up getting to Tahoe and the hotel around 3 pm, and were luckily able to check in early. EDC put us up in the Embassy Suites hotel, which is always nice. The rooms are suites, so there is a bedroom (with two beds this trip), and a separate living room complete with dinning table and mini kitchen (no stove).

We got our things settled in the room and headed out to walk the shops. I think just about every time I’ve gone up to Tahoe, there are new shops. It’s probably going to slow down now since the major construction around the gondola area is done, but its a really great place to just walk and poke about in small shops if you like that sort of thing. I ended up buying a shell necklace from Del Sol. If you’ve ever been to a Del Sol store, you know what they are all about. Everything they sell in the store changes color, or gets color when exposed to UV light (daylight).
Embassy Suites has complimentary drinks in the evenings, so that’s where we headed around 4:30 and meet up with the rest of the group. I had a drink called a Cactus Bite, which was a lot of liquor but quite tasty. After that drink though, I stuck to beer.

In the evening, we had dinner at the Chart House overlooking the lake. They originally put us in this great little room that was kind of in the basement, but still had a decent view of the lake, and was completely empty except for us and the wait staff. It was AWESOME! BUUUT… it wasn’t what John and Debbie (my Boss’) had asked for, so they moved us upstairs to the bar area which was loud, cramped and not nearly as awesome. Oh well… they were paying, so they get to do whatever they want.
I seem to have rubbed off on Kerry with the whole Surf and Turf dinners, because we both ordered Filet Minion, mine came with shrimp, and hers with a lobster tail, and we shared the surf portion. It was delicious.

After that, I was pretty beat, and had eaten so much food that Kerry and I both just went back to the room and crashed. I purchased “Cars” the movie in the room, but Kerry fell asleep before the opening credits, and I didn’t last much longer than that.

We got up at 7:30 Saturday morning to try to hit up the gym before we got the day started, but the diehard’s had already filled the few machines that the hotel had. So instead we just relaxed in the hot tub for a little while. Which I must admit, is quite a nice way to start a day.

Embassy Suites also has a really nice breakfast every morning for free to its guests (including cooked to order foods). So after breakfast we headed out to the docks, where EDC had rented 3 ski boats. This was really the only potion of the trip I had my camera with me, so its the only pictures I’ve got. Kerry and I were looking for a fun time, so we got in the boat with Joe who is a fun loving boat bum (he owns an alcohol burning race boat) and hauled ass over to Emerald Bay where we stopped for a nice lunch. During some no-wake time in the bay, Joe and I figured out where to best trim the I/O on the boat so we could REALY get some speed, and we defnalty made a difference. We sped across the lake at about 55MPH, with Joe jumping wakes and making hard turns. The girls (Kerry and Angelo’s wife Kelly) were sitting up front and got tossed around quite a bit. It was pretty funny to watch, Kerry was holding her boobs in one arm to keep them from flying everywhere, and holding on to the railing with white knuckles on the other hand.

After the boating, Kerry and I went up the Gondola, but didn’t spend much time because on the way up Kerry remembered that she wanted to see a movie that was starting soon. We made it back down and in the theatre only a few seconds after the movie had started back up.

We watched “The Covenant” which wasn’t bad. I don’t think I would waste the money on seeing it in the theatre (but I have a hard time with that no matter what) but I think its worth watching. Kerry loved it, and I have no doubt that it had something to do with the fact that there were 4-5 very good looking guys who spent a good portion of the movie without shirts.

After the movie, it was free drink time again at Embassy, where we once again meet up with some of the EDC crew. Joe, Chris, Alice, Greg, Kammy, Kerry and I all decided to head over to “Fire and Ice” for dinner, and although we had to wait an hour and a half the food was WELL worth it. The place is Mongolian style cooking, but the food and atmosphere is very American. Big chunks of Angus steak, mahi-mahi, seasoned chicken, muscles and an assortment of vegetable and sauces made up the menu. For $19 a plate for an all you can eat place like that wasn’t bad either. The guys doing the cooking put on a show too, flipping their utensils around, throwing empty bowls off the wok into bins etc. If you’re up in Tahoe and looking for a place to eat, I highly recommend “Fire and Ice”. The only downside was that their jalapeños were extremely hot and I spent like 10 min just trying to recover my mouth.
Kerry and I headed back to the room again after dinner to call it an early night (~11PM). We did finish watching “Cars” though, which was a pretty good movie. We wanted to try to get some sleep in before our adventure the next day.

Sunday we got up at 6:30 so that we could check out and head up to the Rubicon trailhead for an ATV excursion. I didn’t take my camera because I didn’t feel comfortable with all the dust, but it was the same basic than to what we did last time, except that Kerry and I were all alone with the guide, and we did a much longer trip this time. We went down through Dollar Hole, which was really fun because it was much more technical than only going to Miller Lake was.

After our ATV’ing we basically just headed home. Kerry wasn’t feeling well, so she slept in the car, and I took highway 88 home to keep myself entertained. It was a nice drive with almost no traffic, and some pretty views. I think I finally got home around 3 PM, and was dead tired. I played around with the new Pool Heater that came in the mail over the weekend and finally went to bed. But I’ll leave the pool heater for another discussion.