From Swimsuits to Snow,... Here We Come Lake Tahoe!

Well, the last leg of our California trip was to Lake Tahoe. There was seriously 10 feet of snow on the side of the road. Like we were driving through a tunnel! It was in the 50-60's so it wasn't too cold but I guess they just get so much snow that it probably doesn't melt until June! We stayed in South Lake Tahoe in one of the casino hotels because they had an amazing deal and one beautiful view!! I took a picture of the view from our bedroom from the 8th floor of the hotel! It was magnificent!
We were right next to Heavenly Ski Resort so on our walks we took during the day down into the ski village, everyone was in their matching cute ski outfits and mostly European too! AJ doesn't know how to ski and I figured Lake Tahoe, one of the most popular places in the world to ski,... was probably not the best place to teach him. Instead, we looked into hiking with snow shoes on! We wanted to do snow tubing like we did in Massanutten last year but they only had one little wimpy hill with two tracks to snow tube... even my 7 year old nephew would have been disappointed. So we rented snow shoes and got some poles to go with it and headed for the trail!
It was so beautiful and the sun was shining and with white snow and the dark evergreen trees on the mountain side... well, you just felt God's presence there... no question. In all of His majesty, you could feel that God moved those mountains just for us to be on that day! I have to admit I was so embarrassed when all the skiers and snow boarders rushed past us to get on the ski lift which of course we had to walk past to get to our trail. We were definitely the ONLY people who got snow shoes at a ski resort! Sigh... but it was a great hike and it only took about two hours which was perfect because the sun went in just as we were getting off the trail. It definitely was windy in the mountains, notice we have our new winter coats on (we bought those in Monterey at the Fishman's Warf)!

Our casino hotel was actually really nice and had a great location we could walk all around if we wanted to! It had 3 restaurants in the hotel that were all very good and reasonably priced. We did go on the casino floor and watch all the crazy people gamble away lifesavings, mortgages, cars, and then there was us... who tried out the penny slots to say we tried it! We lost a total of $9 the whole two days! It was great fun! My impression of gambling is,... it only depends how long you're playing is dependant of how much money you waste... either way, "the house always wins." Whether you play 1 hour or 8 hours... in the end, you lost your money. Some penny slots I was doing really well and got up to $1.40 (I only put in $1) and I kept going thinking I could win more... and like my rule... it only took me a little longer to loose it all. It's amazing what greed and addiction takes over when even playing $1 of your money on a completely randomized game. No wonder God said He had better things in life for us to enjoy! God guarantees our happiness and success, rather then a machine who teases you with false hope and short lived, empty joy.
Either way, we got in our smiles and laughs and took in one of the most beautiful places on earth! The last night we were there we decided to enjoy the amazing sushi buffet (AJ's very into the non-raw sushi lately). They had all kinds of food served and we sampled everything! The last story of our trip I will TRY and be brief about. AJ and I got standby airplane tickets for a steal! It was great getting out there and we had no trouble getting on a flight but coming home...

We thought flying on a Thursday would be best and then AJ had a feeling we should leave the hotel the night before so we were the first people in line at the airport when it opened at 5:30am. So we checked out early (saved a night of hotel expense) and hit a snow storm while leaving the Lake... it was actually kind of scary on a white out! It's a good thing we left when we did instead of trying to leave at 3am and being stuck in a blizzard! We got to the Reno/Tahoe airport at 11:50pm and all the airlines had closed. So we couldn't get past the gates so we bundled up on the cement floor next to the baggage claim and tried to sleep until 4:30am. We couldn't really sleep, when I woke up at 3:30am, AJ was sitting straight up and all ready to tell me how we did on our budget for the trip (we decided not to worry about spending on vacation but we saved receipts to see in the end for future reference). So he was very happy with our expenditure for the trip and my original estimate was right on! Which is rare... We sat by the airline until 6am (2.5 hours) when they finally opened and let us past the gates.

To make a very long story short... we flew to Vegas,... got taken off the plane... thankfully, got put back on to fly to Chicago... then from 11am on Thursday to 6:30am on Friday we ran around all of Chicago trying to get on every flight (at least 2 an hour) to get to the east coast! We just wanted to get to even Tennessee! We couldn't get on anything!!! I was crying, AJ looked into rental cars to drive home. We were so scared we would miss Easter (that Sunday!). So tired from no sleep the night before and aching from running around to gates and standing in lines and yelling at flight attendants... we curled up in two chairs until someone told us about some cots that the airport puts out by the food court area. So we dragged ourselves over there and got a coat which had a pillow and a blanket and we slept like we were in a homeless hostel! But it felt so good to lay flat and the woman on the loud speaker announcing every flight number and warning every 15 minutes finally put us to sleep.
The worst part about this was my birthday was on Friday and we had plans at home and we couldn't get there! 4:30am rolls around and AJ wakes me up and kisses me and says, "Happy Birthday my beautiful wife. Now, you take gates C3 and C7 and I'll take B4 and B12, the first one out is at 6:15am so let's go now." I was so tired and sad from running to 30 different flights the day before not being able to get on any of them! We prayed together so long before we fell asleep and God obviously had a plan for us! We couldn't get on the flight to Baltimore but we got one to Philadelphia!!! I called AJ on the phone and was almost crying when I heard the flight women call "Bachmann, 2" to hand me two printed tickets! We actually were holding tickets!!! We hugged and cried and ran onto the plane and didn't even care that we didn't sit together and we slept the whole flight from Chicago to Philly.

I had called my Dad, who had our car, right before we left Chicago to tell him that we finally got on a flight and we'll figure out how to get home to Baltimore when we get there. Sure enough, when we got off the plane in Philly and I checked my voicemail... my Dad had hopped in his car to come pick us up in Philly and was only 30 minutes away when we landed! I couldn't believe it! God answered our prayers before we even said them! I just had to cry out of pure joy! If any of you have a father... the sacrifices they make for you,... even when you think you've grown up and don't need them... never forget, you will always need your Daddy! Thank you Dad, we love you so much!!!
The reason we couldn't buy real tickets and we couldn't rent a car and couldn't get on stand by out of Chicago was because not only was it Easter weekend, it was spring break for colleges! People who actually bought real tickets (not stand by) were being turned away! So we're a little scared to get on a plane again in fear that we won't get home but it was a terrible ending to one amazing trip to see all of California!!!