Friday, January 07, 2005
Near Year 2005. Celebrated the new year with Imelda and her relatives at the Waterfront restaurant in San Francisco. The amazing thing was it almost seemed like someone put up a huge tent in the sky to stop the rain during the count-down. Prasie God for a beautiful night.
To see pictures: click here
To see pictures: click here
Thursday, January 06, 2005
Oregon. On Christmas day, Imelda and I and her cousin Erny headed on a road trip to Portland. We left a little late, so we did not get to see much of the scenary before it got dark. But we made it to Mt. Shasta for dinner and spent the night there so that we can do a half day of skiing the following day. When we woke up the following morning, we found that it had been snowing all night. It was a white Christmas indeed with a layer of snow on top of every tree branch.
On our way to the ski resort, I had to make a right turn, as I hit the brakes, the car did not slow down nor turn as I had anticipated, it slid for another 3 car lengths. As the rail ahead of us came closer and closer, I could not do anything except pumping the brake and hoping for the best. But thank God the car stopped in time. I guess I had too much confidence in my quattro but not enough experience ;)
Up on the slopes, visibility was pretty tough. Even though I love powder, I have to admit that there were just too much of it. Comparing to Tahoe, this is a tiny resort with only 2 lifts and not many runs. But I enjoyed it anyways because it was the right amount of time for us to be acquainted with the surrondings and not getting too tired.
In the parking lot, my car got stuck facing up a steep hill. We could not backup nor move up the hill. There were just not enough grip on the wheels. After several tries, I decided to push the car from the back while Imelda took the driver's seat. (Silly me huh, thinking that I could actually help the car by pushing it?) In less than a minute she made a 90 degree turn while the back wheels remained in place. With the car facing slightly downhill, the car was able to move. Good job.
As we drove out to the main road from the ski resort, we saw several cars including a few 4x4s that spun out and were stuck on the side of the road. I felt sorry for them and at the same time I was praying that the same fate wouldn't happen to us. First, it was cold; second, it was snowing; third, I was the only guy in the car. We must have driven for about a half hour at crawling speeds before we got onto the freeway. Even then, everyone drove in single file in which there was a clear tire track to drive on. On the south bound, traffic was piled up for miles due to snow chain requirement. Some of them had turned off their engine completely. Lucky for us, we must have missed the checkpoint.
The next 3 days, we spent it in Portland visiting Imelda's friends, relatives, malls, old hang out places. We also went to Waterfront, Uptown, Multnomah falls, Crown Point, Asland's Shakespeare Festival.
The trip was a blessing because not only did we make it back safely, we weren't stuck in traffic and did not have to put on snow chains despite the heavy snow/rain storm. In addition, 3 out of the 4 days that we were there, we didn't get rained on, which is unusual for Oregon. And yup, anything is nicer than staring into a computer screen ;)
To see the pictures: click here
On our way to the ski resort, I had to make a right turn, as I hit the brakes, the car did not slow down nor turn as I had anticipated, it slid for another 3 car lengths. As the rail ahead of us came closer and closer, I could not do anything except pumping the brake and hoping for the best. But thank God the car stopped in time. I guess I had too much confidence in my quattro but not enough experience ;)
Up on the slopes, visibility was pretty tough. Even though I love powder, I have to admit that there were just too much of it. Comparing to Tahoe, this is a tiny resort with only 2 lifts and not many runs. But I enjoyed it anyways because it was the right amount of time for us to be acquainted with the surrondings and not getting too tired.
In the parking lot, my car got stuck facing up a steep hill. We could not backup nor move up the hill. There were just not enough grip on the wheels. After several tries, I decided to push the car from the back while Imelda took the driver's seat. (Silly me huh, thinking that I could actually help the car by pushing it?) In less than a minute she made a 90 degree turn while the back wheels remained in place. With the car facing slightly downhill, the car was able to move. Good job.
As we drove out to the main road from the ski resort, we saw several cars including a few 4x4s that spun out and were stuck on the side of the road. I felt sorry for them and at the same time I was praying that the same fate wouldn't happen to us. First, it was cold; second, it was snowing; third, I was the only guy in the car. We must have driven for about a half hour at crawling speeds before we got onto the freeway. Even then, everyone drove in single file in which there was a clear tire track to drive on. On the south bound, traffic was piled up for miles due to snow chain requirement. Some of them had turned off their engine completely. Lucky for us, we must have missed the checkpoint.
The next 3 days, we spent it in Portland visiting Imelda's friends, relatives, malls, old hang out places. We also went to Waterfront, Uptown, Multnomah falls, Crown Point, Asland's Shakespeare Festival.
The trip was a blessing because not only did we make it back safely, we weren't stuck in traffic and did not have to put on snow chains despite the heavy snow/rain storm. In addition, 3 out of the 4 days that we were there, we didn't get rained on, which is unusual for Oregon. And yup, anything is nicer than staring into a computer screen ;)
To see the pictures: click here
