Winter Storm Advisory

"We advise you that you need to go enjoy a snow storm in the mountains..." -Grant and Robin's collective consciences on the subject of dealing with 'lack of wintry weather depression'

December 27-30, 2004 *Trip to Lake Tahoe* CA’s escape to real weather

(Sunday) Last week, Grant and I decided to get out of Berkeley for a few days. The mundane weather pattern of the bay area in conjunction with the shortness of the days has almost driven me mad. Except for 2 major rain storms, for the last 2 months, the temperatures have ranged from 50 to 60 and the sky has been clear with less than usual fog in the Golden Gate. The only things that have changed are the sunrise and sunset times. Depressing. It didn’t feel like winter. It didn’t even feel like Christmas was coming. It was weird and wrong and it was causing me emotional distress. When Grant and I told everyone that we were moving to California, most people said, “I bet you’re glad that there won’t be any snow.” My answer was always, “I’m glad that I will not have to drive in it.” However, there was never any total gladness in my thoughts of leaving the state of my youth. I honestly love Michigan. I love being so close to so many fresh water lakes, especially the big ones that start with the word Lake. I love that there are seasons, my favorite being Fall. I love that you have big cities when you want them (Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids, Traverse City) and quiet retreats not too far away (Kensington Metro Park, Sleeping Bear Dunes, Pictured Rocks, Manistee River Trail). I love that I know all of the major expressways in Lower Peninsula (I grew up near the cross of I-96 and US 23 and then got my first teaching job near the cross of I-69 and I-75). I love that you could drive fast on straight roads through endless farm fields. I love that most Michigan drivers can drive- in any weather condition. I love the look people give me here when they know that they will never be able to point their hand and tell me where they grew up.

Obviously, we did not make plans for a trip back to Michigan or else some of you would be seeing us right now. So what is the next best thing that we found on such short notice? Lake Tahoe. Tucked in the middle of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and on the border between California and Nevada is a beautiful lake named Lake Tahoe. Lake Tahoe is frigged right now but it never freezes because the water moves too fast. It doesn’t matter because we are not really here for the lake anyways. We are here for the snow. It is so sad that you have to drive 3 hours and climb 8000 feet from where we live in Berkeley in order to see something that is what winter is all about- and there is tons of it here already and we hear that more is on its way. Not only is it on the ground, but it is on the roads so we get to practice our winter driving skills. We even get to learn a new skill like driving with tire chains on. Snow is on roofs of buildings, it is on cars, and it is on the bottom of our skis because we skied like crazy today. I would say about 80% of the people who visit Lake Tahoe come primarily for the Alpine Skiing. Which means that the “unpopular” Nordic skiing was amazing.

Today (Tuesday) we left our cozy hotel room at 7am and drove to the closest Sno-Park to South Lake Tahoe. (FYI: Sno-Parks are controlled by the California State Parks and are provided for people who do not waste their money on lift tickets but enjoy the finer, more elegant sports of cross-country skiing (nordic and telemark), snow shoeing, and sledding. Oh yeah, those annoying snow mobiles are allowed in some of the parks too. Sno-parks cost $5 per day – visit as many as you can in a day- or $25 for the season which includes staying overnight in your car if you want to. We bought the season pass hoping that we’ll be back at least one more time) You have to do your research before you get to the sno-park because there are few signs and the trails may or may not be marked. These mild inconveniences for the common folk proved to be a great adventure for my curious husband. You see, before we left Berkeley, we went to REI and purchased a couple of topographical maps of the area. (Thank you mom and dad Kinney for the gift certificate) Armed with his maps, compass, and GPS my husband was in 7th heaven today when we traversed the side of a mountain, along a beautiful lake, on a path that had disappeared due to the gusty winds and blowing snow, with the occasional threat of slipping down the mountain into the lake, all on skis. Can you get this kind of adventure from going downhill on a groomed trail at a prissy resort? I think not. You can’t even get this kind of adventure from the resorts that specialize in cross country skiing (which all charge around $20 per day). Today was the most thrilling day on skis that either one of us had ever had. And alas, today is only Tuesday. We still have Wednesday and Thursday to discover more mountains and lakes.

Looking back on our decision, we probably missed the most exciting weather week in Berkeley as there were rainstorms and flooding. Pictures of Berkeley made it to The Weather Channel. Rain is a big deal for people in California. They do not seem to know how to drive in it therefore they crash into other people. Good thing we're not there to witness it.

(Wednesday) Today we slept in slightly longer and got a later start which meant that the roads were more clear than yesterday and that more people were up and about. We stopped first at the National Park Service Headquarters to get some maps and practical information about the trails in the area. A very lovely park ranger gave us some great tips from personal experience and sent us on our way to Carson Pass, a sno-park along highway 88. This park had the deepest snow that we had seen so far. We parked and got our gear together. We always take the typical supplies... duct tape, compass, whistle, GPS, maps, chap stick, water, granola bars, headlamps with extra batteries, etc. I pretty much carry what Grant tells me to take with me. After climbing over a 6 foot wall of snow at the edge of the parking lot, we located a park map on a tree. The map was about 5 feet over our heads. We tried our best to read it but decided to just follow the blue diamonds nailed to the trees as we started our expedition. We'll break up this trip into 3 parts. Keep in mind that today was supposed to be the easy day because we worked so hard yesterday and were sore...

Phase 1: Trail already broken. We followed the path already set before us. Along the way we passed 5 other skiiers returning so we felt pretty good about the path we chose. Then after a downhill, the path turned to the left and the blue diamonds disappeared. At the time, I knew that our plan was to follow the marked path so we turned around to search for the place where the set trail separated from the intended path. Looking back, I probably should have just followed the trail in the snow because it probably would have led back to the start anyways.

Phase 2: The rolling hills of Carson Pass were great. Grant and I had lots of fun skiing in the woods. We backtracked and found the blue diamonds which led us downhill. There was no trail, so we made our own as we let gravity pull us down the hill. At the bottom we found another sign that was nailed pretty high on a tree and decided to loop around towards Woods Lake and then back to the parking lot. The total loop was less than 4 miles total. The trail to the lake was mostly flat with Grant leading the way in breaking trail. At this point, our spirits were still high and the sense of adventure was very strong in Grant. The lake was frozen over but we didn't test its strength. There was nothing too special about the lake.

Phase 3: After all the fun of breaking a trail going downhill, and seeing the river which led to the lake, we realized that we would have to go back up to get to our car. Breaking trail in knee deep snow (it was knee deep on skis and probably close to a foot deeper than than without skis) going up hill proved to be one of the hardest things that I have done while participating in an outdoors sport. We took turns leading eachother and following those faithful blue diamonds. The time sped from 2:30pm when we left the lake to 3:10pm when we were .2 miles farher along the path. The GPS showed that we were getting closer to the highway but were still over a mile away from the parking lot. I wanted to go to the road. Grant dissented, sure that we would get run over because of the weather conditions. It had been steadily snowing the entire time we were skiing. So we tramped on for another .2 miles which took over an hour. By now the sky was getting darker and the road was about 10 feet from us horizontally (about 40 feet vertically). Exhausted, we crawled up the hill, put our headlamps on backwards for the cars behind us, and started skiing on the snow bank created by the snow plows. We did not get hit by any cars but we did get some weird looks from some people as we climbed over the snow bank onto the road. We finally made it back to the car at about 5:30pm- just in time for the snow plow to come and clear a path for us out of the parking lot.

With that adventure behind us, we kept up with our plan of relaxing in the natural hot springs of Grover Hot Springs State Park. The 102 degree pool was great. It was just what we needed. It was especially cool to feel the snow fall as was sat in the toasty outdoor pool.

Tomorrow (Thursday) we head home so I'll finish this adventure when we get back...

Trader Joe's

There is no Trader Joe's in Berkeley. You can find two within 2 miles (in different directions) of our apartment. Both stores are equally crowded and both provide snacks all day long. Today's interesting snack/drink was called "Very Green Juice Blend." The big juice container (the like 5 gallon serving type container with a spigot) was 3/4 of the way full. Was this because it was recently filled or are other people feeling the same suspicion that I do about the thick deep forest green liquid inside? Feeling adventurous, as I have been feeling more and more about food since moving here, I poured a cup full and brought it back to Grant who was waiting in line at the checkout. "What is that?" he says as he looks doubtfully at the liquid I have delivered to him. The look was half disgust and half interested. For being so green, the juice did have a strong banana flavor and was thicker than the typical juice that we buy. This was not made from concentrate.

About a month ago Grant and I both purchased cyclocross bikes. His is a Trek (strong, American) and mine is a Bianchi Volpe (a cute little Italian delight). Cyclocross bikes look like road bikes but have the ability to ride on thicker tires in order to go safely on dirt and gravel roads/trails. They are fast. Not as fast as road bikes could be- not that I will ever feel safe about going over 25 mph on a bike anyways- but fast enough for me and the hills of Berkeley. Anyways, one of many cool things about these bikes is their touring capabilities. Grant is all about going on a weekend bike/camping trip someday. The trip across America is always a possibility. So the bikes have the screws built into the frames for racks and of course we had to get panniers for the racks and of course we have to prove that the bags and racks work by going grocery shopping. This would have been our preferred method except today we had a bunch of errands to do like going to Target to pick out Mitch and Laurie’s wedding present.

Trader Joe’s is the store we go to for cheaper frozen veggies, Morningstar farm products, tortillas, bagels, pasta, sauce, condiments, and beer. We buy beer here because they always have descriptions on the price tags on the shelves. Since I have not developed my taste for beer yet, we choose a new six-pack each time we go based solely on the tags. I usually drink one or two before they are all gone. Liquids disappear quick around this apartment. Gallons of milk in a few days. (Milk we buy at Long’s Drug Store as well as ice cream)

One of the secrets to Trader Joe’s is that they can fit a lot of stuff into a small place because there are not 10 different options for everything (not many different brands and sizes). So it is easy to shop. People are happy there in their tropical work shirts.

The Berkeley Bowl

For most of the people I know, we are the only ones they know of who live in Berkeley, CA. So in my next few blogs I would like to highlight some of the activities that used to be very significant to Grant and myself but are now becomoing an everyday way of life. The first of which is the Berkeley Bowl grocery store.

The Berkeley Bowl parking lot is always full. I drive past it on my way to school everyday and at 7am the parking lot is full of trucks bringing in tons of fresh produce for the store. California has quite a good amount of unique and delicious produce from its thriving (and water sucking) agricultural industry. Once the store opens at 9am, the crowds flock and keep the place busy through out the whole day until 8 at night. The best time that we've found to go is around 7pm on a Friday.

At first, one might be very overwhelmed with the Berkeley Bowl experience. "Why are there so many people in here?" "Why are the lines so long" "What's up with that guy's hair?" "Lets just skip the ethnic food isle because its jammed with carts," "You mean there was a separate scale for bulk food items that we had to go to?" "How do the cashiers memorize so many skew numbers?" "Will grocery shopping always take this long?" But then you learn to enjoy the fact that grocery shopping can be a leisure activity. You get to watch a great variety of people, speaking all kinds of languages, interacting as we do this dance, moving gingerly around each other, in the produce isles.

Berkeley Bowl is like many typical stores. It has the produce and freezer sections. It has a deli, with a place to eat, the meat and cheese counters. It has a bulk food section and dairy area. But it is not the sections that make the difference, no the essence of BB is in the food that is there. We always buy the cage free eggs with the drawings of the chickens throwing their cages on the carton. We strole down the bulk food isle and decide what cereal we would like to have for the next week. "Here is the bulk couscous, would you like whole wheat this time?" "How are we doing on noodles? Do you want to try the veggie spirials?"

At first we thought that the Berkeley Bowl was grossly over priced. We thought that going there would be an experience that we would only take in once in a grear while. Then we shopped around. Whole Foods = still expensive. Albertson's = still expensice. Andronico's = still expensice. Safeway = bad produce, cheaper prices on boxed things, but after living in Berkeley not quite acceptable. So we are left with enjoying BB and Trader Joe's (a topic for another Blog and a store not really in Berkeley)

Grant has a gardening project that he's working on for his Ecofeminist Theology class and we needed to get pallets. I suggested that we go to a grocery store or drug store and check in back. So we went to a nearby Safeway. We went inside to ask if we could take one. No one was at the customer service desk. No employee who walked by seemed to care that we were waiting. We looked around and thought of a few items we needed and said, "lets shop and come back." We wondered through the produce isle. It felt strange. The food arrangements looked weird. The food was different. Where were all the people? Where was the chatter of people talking on their phones with their handless headsets? Where was the organic section? Where are the 10 varieties of hot pepper? And then it dawned on me. I have truley become a real Berkeley citizen because I couldn't stand being able to walk down clear isles in a store other than the Berkeley Bowl.

You must come visit.

So here we are...

Rounding off our 3rd full month in Berkeley, CA, we still feel like foreigners in this strange state. The biggest issue to start our new life here was getting used to the constant traffice battle. It was hard to get motivated to learn about our new city of residence when it took forever to get anywhere and you really weren't sure of where anywhere was. Even now, we still do not head out very much just to explore unless it is to a new regional park with trees, hills, and the California version of a mountain bike trail.

School has been rough for both Grant and myself. We are both in culture shock and battling homesickness. It's a good thing that the weather is so sunny here to help lift our spirits. Grant has reminded me that we have a website that has been untouched for a while and I should write there. I'll think about it. You can visit it. www.robinandgrant.com