Blog: Skiing!
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Skiing! - Friday, March 22, 2013
If the benefits at Pure Storage weren't awesome enough, last weekend the engineering department went on an all-expenses paid ski trip to Tahoe!
Around 30 of us left on a bus at 10am Friday morning (great excuse to have the day off), and 223 miles and 4 hours later arrived at our hotel - Harveys in South Lake Tahoe. We had the afternoon free, with some people immediately hitting up the hotel casino and lots of others hitting up a couple of the bars in the area. Most of us rejoined for dinner at Base Camp Pizza, a place that has amazingly tasty and fresh pizza!
Everybody received gondola tickets which we used on Saturday at the Heavenly Mountain Resort. Those not skiing took the gondola up to the lodge to play board games. I of course had to try my luck at skiing for the first time. I didn't want to take lessons right off the bat, so I just winged it on the green run. I'll let the text of my Yelp review tell the story:
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Me: "Lessons are for suckers. I've snowboarded twice and done some ice skating. I'll be fine."
Me: [Going down the green hill] "AHHHHHHHHH!!!!"
Me: [A few runs later]: "Ok this isn't so bad. I'm starting to get the hang of this."
Me: [A few more runs later]: "Hey I have a crazy idea. Maybe I should try a blue run?"
So I ask a guide which blue run is the easiest, and he directs me to the nearby "California Trail". Sounds good! Well I regretted it as soon as I got on the chair lift and saw how far up it went. Or rather, did not see how far up it went, because the cable stretched off into the horizon.
I knew I was going to have some trouble when I got to the top of that billion foot tall mountain. That trail was freaking STEEP.
Me: "Well, there are only two ways down, and I'm not taking the chair. Ok here goes..."
Me: "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!"
Me: [Between screams]: "WHY DID I NOT TAKE LESSONS?!?!?!"
Well needless to say, I fell more during that run than I had all day prior. At least the view was awesome from up there. =/
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That night we had dinner at Stateline Brewery because lots of my co-workers like to drink, which probably also helped drown out the pain that anybody may have been feeling from that day's (mis)adventures. And after that, since drinking at Stateline wasn't enough for some people, a bunch of us caravanned over to a bar near the hotel.
We stayed at Harveys for two nights - Friday and Saturday. I shared a room with one of the younger guys at Pure. We had a pretty nice room with double queen beds, a view of the lake, and a swanky bathroom with a separate changing area, room with a toilet, and a room with a bathrub and shower stall.
It was pretty awesome how the company lavished so much on us and got us an expensive room when cheaper ones were available. And as far as I could tell, there was no special treatment - for instance, the CTO had a room on my floor which probably had a worse view than mine! Man, this company is awesome.
Around 30 of us left on a bus at 10am Friday morning (great excuse to have the day off), and 223 miles and 4 hours later arrived at our hotel - Harveys in South Lake Tahoe. We had the afternoon free, with some people immediately hitting up the hotel casino and lots of others hitting up a couple of the bars in the area. Most of us rejoined for dinner at Base Camp Pizza, a place that has amazingly tasty and fresh pizza!
Everybody received gondola tickets which we used on Saturday at the Heavenly Mountain Resort. Those not skiing took the gondola up to the lodge to play board games. I of course had to try my luck at skiing for the first time. I didn't want to take lessons right off the bat, so I just winged it on the green run. I'll let the text of my Yelp review tell the story:
----------
Me: "Lessons are for suckers. I've snowboarded twice and done some ice skating. I'll be fine."
Me: [Going down the green hill] "AHHHHHHHHH!!!!"
Me: [A few runs later]: "Ok this isn't so bad. I'm starting to get the hang of this."
Me: [A few more runs later]: "Hey I have a crazy idea. Maybe I should try a blue run?"
So I ask a guide which blue run is the easiest, and he directs me to the nearby "California Trail". Sounds good! Well I regretted it as soon as I got on the chair lift and saw how far up it went. Or rather, did not see how far up it went, because the cable stretched off into the horizon.
I knew I was going to have some trouble when I got to the top of that billion foot tall mountain. That trail was freaking STEEP.
Me: "Well, there are only two ways down, and I'm not taking the chair. Ok here goes..."
Me: "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!"
Me: [Between screams]: "WHY DID I NOT TAKE LESSONS?!?!?!"
Well needless to say, I fell more during that run than I had all day prior. At least the view was awesome from up there. =/
----------
That night we had dinner at Stateline Brewery because lots of my co-workers like to drink, which probably also helped drown out the pain that anybody may have been feeling from that day's (mis)adventures. And after that, since drinking at Stateline wasn't enough for some people, a bunch of us caravanned over to a bar near the hotel.
We stayed at Harveys for two nights - Friday and Saturday. I shared a room with one of the younger guys at Pure. We had a pretty nice room with double queen beds, a view of the lake, and a swanky bathroom with a separate changing area, room with a toilet, and a room with a bathrub and shower stall.
It was pretty awesome how the company lavished so much on us and got us an expensive room when cheaper ones were available. And as far as I could tell, there was no special treatment - for instance, the CTO had a room on my floor which probably had a worse view than mine! Man, this company is awesome.