I <3 snowboarding. But I have to say, this season has been crazy for me in terms of boarding trips. The first time I went up was New Years Eve. I didn’t really check the weather because I had a friend visiting that I see about once a year, and I determined to get to Lake Tahoe no matter what. Lucky for me, there was a humongous storm that weekend. It was only the biggest flood that Reno has seen since 1997. To add on to that, my PSP ran out of batteries and I was basically stuck in my hotel room for all of New Year’s Eve watching the entire season of Making of the Band 3 on MTV. I hate to admit it, but I could not stop watching that show and ended up finding it extremely entertaining. So by the next day, the flooding had caused lots of damage and forced a lot of the big highways to close. I had to take major detours to even get to the ski resorts, but I eventually got in an awesome day of boarding.

The drive back was a different story. Driving through those dark and windy mountain roads while it was pouring rain was one of the scariest drives I have ever done. I swear, I thought my tires were going to give in any second to the wet roads and that me and my passengers would never make it back alive. In my paranoid and tense state, I even started to wonder if I would be better at driving games after this experience. It made me think that I wish they had made a Driver’s Ed virtual driving game that simulated driving through rain/snow/windy roads with lights coming at you and blinding you every few seconds. They could even simulate the windows fogging up and you having to adjust the AC/defroster every few minutes while trying to see through those wind shield wipers! Maybe then I would have been more prepared. Maybe some day… in the future.

So obviously I made it back in one piece, but I guess that first time wasn’t enough for me. Because this past weekend, I ended up going back up to Tahoe again! There was more snow on the road and we were even faced with things worse than bad weather - TRAFFIC. But this time, I was prepared. First of all, I wasn’t driving. And second of all, I bought myself a DS and a copy of Meteos for some wi-fi challenges. This puzzle game is unlike any other, simply because you have to use the stylus to move the blocks. The goal is to make horizontal or verticle rows of at least 3. Once you do, your blocks “blast off” and fall on the other player’s screen (kind of like meteors). It’s so easy to learn and so addictive that I convinced my non-gamer girl friend to buy a DS just for this game. It’s really that fun. And even though it took about twice as long to get home because of all the traffic, the time seemed to pass quickly with battle of the meteors in the car. Anyways, thank goodness for handhelds. Now if only they made it so that I could wear ski gloves AND hold that tiny stylus...then I’d have something to do on the ski lift!