South Lake Tahoe/Stateline, California/Nevada

Well, I'm officially cheating now- I've been back in Australia for nearly a week and my memories of the holiday are already fading. Though for those of you who tend to speed read my more epic-sized posts, this may be a welcome change. And for those of you who read my blog just to check I was alive, well, you can phone me now, you cheap bastards.

Anyway, the day of flying that delivered us to Reno featured a bag-check at EVERY airport (Ottawa, Vancouver, Portland, San Francisco) and even a super-special pat-down entering Portland (remember the felt-up reference a few posts back? There ya go).

We had a 6 hour stopover in Portland, an airport which fortunately featured free wireless internet access. I would use the laptop to blog and surf the 'net while Kev would read comics, and then we would swap. During this journey I read the entire Dark Elf Trilogy (in graphic novel form) as I had already finished the first 50 issues of Fables. So I was officially out of 'entertainment' reading materials, therefore leaving me with my English and Drama Uni readers... Woo.

We arrived in Reno, Nevada disgustingly late to discover that our hotel did not provide a free shuttle service after a certain time. It was about 11:45pm, which was 2:45am to our EST-set body clocks. Our luggage took forever to arrive, and we struggled to haul our haul out to the taxi lane. We hopped into a taxi that featured a revolving sign on the roof; one side proclaiming the dubiously "mysterious" joys of a Gentleman's Club, and the other advertising the all-new musical, "Debbie Loves Dallas". That's right, "LOVES". It's an American porn movie, and it's being shown in Nevada, and yet they needed to censor the oh-so-naughty word "Does". Does no one care to preserve the beauty of alliteration these days?

We got to our hotel, dragged our bags to our room (a fair hike from the reception to boot) and collapsed into bed. We were being picked up by Kev's Dad at 11am so it wasn't going to be a short night anyway.

We woke up still tired at 9:30am, and battled with rusty bathroom fittings and ultra-bright lights to get ourselves looking halfway presentable. At 10:30am Richard called to say he wouldn't be picking us up until 2pm!! Grrrrrrr... But even better, we could only delay our check-out until 1pm, so that gave us an oh-so-enjoyable hour sitting in the uncomfortably warm reception area of the hotel, surrounded by our baggage. Being stuck guarding our baggage stole all my energy, so by the time Richard finally arrived I was drained and tired. So much for the first day of our holiday.

We arrived at the Tahoe Keys Resort at 3:30pm-ish, and the rest of the Bosworth clan dribbled in over the following hours. I worked hard to assimilate everyone's name; I think I did pretty well. I've never been the type to call people by their names during greetings and conversations anyway, not sure why. I'm more of a visual person perhaps...

The first day ended with a fine spag and sauce meal prepared by Cheryl, and Charades.

On Tuesday Kev and I sourced free bike hire and toured around the resort looking at some seriously swanky houses, and some not-so-swanky ones that were being furiously renovated. We nominated unit 188 as the common unit, and Kat had brought jigsaw puzzles to be communally completed, so I made a solid start on that. I spent time online finding an interesting dessert recipe, and ended up combining some fruit cobbler recipes to make a low-fat, ultimate fruit cobbler featuring all the delicious summer fruits California had to offer. Steph and Rob served up a mind-blowing stir-fry, followed by my cobbler. I was very happy with how it turned out, and everyone seemed to enjoy it. My pleasure was soured when it was revealed to me that certain members of the family were interpreting my dessert as a "please like me" appeal from me... Like hell I would do that with pie. I made the dessert cos I like eating dessert, damnit. If I was going to buy someone's favour I'd do it with real money. Or blackmail.

Kev had to write his SitePoint newsletter on Wednesday so I spent time getting to know his rellies. I went to the Mini Golf course with Greg(arious), Angie, Ben and Louisa which was a laugh. It was a windy day and I was concerned that my green skirt wasn't the best attire for the day, but it was too hot to consider wearing jeans. For my first time mini-putting I did ok, sometimes getting par, sometimes getting birdies, and sometimes getting the max of 5 strokes. I took Kev's camera along so I was forever whipping out the camera to get some fun shots. Watch Kev's photo album for some especially flattering shots of Greg... Hey, he posed for them. The course itself had some classic holes such as the paddle-wheel, as well as an interesting par 1 hole where a spider dangling from a web swept across to either carry the ball into the hole, or far from it. There was also a disturbing giant purple kangaroo. The course was called "Castle"...

The Pirate Ship hole was my undoing. It was raised above ground level, and as I leaned in to take my shot, the wind whipped in to take my skirt and wrap it neatly around my ears. Well heck, I was wearing cute undies. I gathered up my skirt and what was left of my modesty, and tidily tapped my ball into the hole. I'm such a lady.

We returned to Tahoe Keys and I played Scrabble against Richard. I've always enjoyed the game, although the use of a Scrabble dictionary and a "play until everyone has finished" rule took the fun out of it a little for me. Nonetheless, we played a good game and I won. I was informed that Angie was a keen player and I looked forward to the challenge.

Dinner was served by Angie and Greg - a BBQ and salad fiesta, capped by a delicious "Mexican fried ice-cream"-esque dessert. I don't know what Mexican fried ice-cream is, but someone said Angie's dessert was similar. So, if you know what Mexican fried ice-cream is, this was similar. Got it? Good. Afterwards the Pai Gow express took most of the adults to Harrah's Casino, and the remaining young people played various card games, culminating in a mean game of Spoons. Christine was sitting pretty without a loss to her name right down to the final three - Ben, Christine and I. We managed to give Christine an "S" before Ben was ousted, and I was still sitting on "S-P-O-O". Ah, the tension! And also the finger pain - that Ben has some seriously long nails, taking a chunk out of both Kev and myself. Spoons is not for pansies. It's also not that fun when it's down to two people - the loser becomes 'the last to get 4 of a kind' rather than 'the last to notice someone has got four of a kind'. I was lucky enough to get four of a kind first when Christine was dealer, and I'm very quick to pick up cards when I'm dealer, so amazingly I won 4 times in a row without copping a loss that would have won Christine the game. Afterwards we played "Mau" which is a card game with one rule - you cannot teach the rules of Mau. However, I've now done the mandatory Google search, but ironically the most interesting page that came up has rules that are all but completely different to those we discovered as we played. That's what you get when no one is allowed to write down the rules (or at least their sense of ethics should prevent them for doing so. Shame on you, Steve Harris.

Now, you'd think that since Kev had to spend all of Wednesday indoors, he'd be gunning to get the most out of his next day in California. He did - if you count sitting indoors reading comics as 'making the most' of a day in summer paradise. I think this was the day 'the girls' went down to The Y factory outlets and I found a gorgeous pair of black, shiny yoga pants at a scary $US45... $AU60 isn't really what I would spend on sports pants, but I did need some work-out pants to go with my pricey gym membership... I needed time to think, so I returned to our unit empty-handed. I learned Pai Gow Poker and made a couple of bucks in a friendly $5 game with Rob, Greg, Angie, Brian and Ben. I then played Scrabbled against Angie and Richard, a drawn-out game (especially for me, since I've used to playing with a timer) which was broken up by dinner. Dinner was provided by Kathy Mac, and during the meal Don scoped interest in hiring a pontoon boat for Friday. $40AU seemed a bit much for 4 hours on a boat but, like, everyone was doing it so I followed along. At least I was ensured a swim in Lake Tahoe, which had at that point evaded my pale legs. After dinner we completed Scrabble, which I won by a couple of points. It came down to the last few letters, which isn't fun because by the time someone wins the others aren't enjoying themselves anymore. I much much much prefer the 'first to use all their letters' ending, tabulating points from there. It's a more definite ending. Anyway, this game was to be my last Scrabble game as after winning two games I was declared "unbeatable" and no one wanted to play me anymore. So instead I taught everyone the card game "Oh Bother" which I've played since I was teeny - it's very simple but has a tantalising level of tension so it works for all ages.

I was asked to run an impro session after dinner so I set up game after game for brave and not-so-brave Bosworths to play. Hilarity rightly ensued. Some in-jokes for posterity:

• Greg and Don help Brian deliver a baby in 3.75 seconds.
  
• A kittenish Louisa and a slothful Cheryl dodge their sssnake-like boss Richard.
  
• Picking on a random stranger at a bus stop until he explodes, in 1, 2, 3 words.
  
• An especially disturbing dentistry scene...
  
• A thoroughly thwarted bank robbery attempt.
  
• "Martha Stewart?"
  
• "My accountant?"
  
• "My wife?"
  
• "ME?"
  

Afterwards I joined the Pai Gow Express and spent a couple of hours at Harrah's Casino in Stateline, Nevada. I watched a few hands of Pai Gow, and then joined Angie at the penny slots, where I quickly made a dollar, and downed three free drinks. Well, free if you don't count the tip. Angie made ten bucks in a lucky spin and left for the Pai Gow tables. I joined her, until Cheryl wanted to go to the cheap slots, "to get a free drink." Unfortunately the waitress wasn't as diligent this time and I spent my dollar plus two more before she turned up and took our order. I then sat and waited for my drink, watching Cheryl slowly spin her dollar away. By the time our drinks arrived the others were ready to leave, so we snuck our drinks out with us and downed them in the car. Norty.

Friday was Pontoon Day. We went out for breakfast at Heidi's, a Swiss-themed pancakes-and-more restaurant, with Steph and Rob, and Greg et al. My pancakes were disappointing - so dry they crumbled, and the strawberry topping was sickly and sticky. Shame. We had ordered some link sausages as a side so that was lucky. We drove back (with one back-track to check for a misplaced mobile phone and one stop for grog) and jumped onto the pontoon boat.

It took a good 40 minutes to get over to Emerald Bay, and another hour struggling with a crap anchor before we gave up and decided to drift. A few of us took the opportunity to swim, which was very very pleasant, using life jackets as floaties. It was all over far too soon and we raced back to Tahoe Keys as not to miss our boat-return time. The rest of the afternoon was probably spent playing cards or working on the puzzle - much harder than it originally seemed. We ordered pizza for dinner, and attempted to finish all the left-overs from the previous dinners. Good tucker. I don't know what we did after dinner - the evening activities I've listed so far are probably all out of chronological order, but meh.

Saturday was "finish the puzzle or else" day. Kev and I started our day with a ride in the paddle boats - we went on a literal "wild goose chase" - I snapped many of a photo of goose posterior during that trip. Then straight to the puzzle - I spent a couple of hours, with Kev's help, filling in the majority of the puzzle before I was joined by Christine and Meg. We finished the puzzle in a frenzy of twisting, thumping and sighing. Awesome. I then went to the bathroom (you can't take breaks during such a concentrated puzzling) and when I returned Cheryl had efficiently disassembled the puzzle and returned the pieces into its box. Well, I think I got to see it in its complete form for about 15 seconds. Kev managed to snap a photo first, so it wasn't all wasted. I taught Christine and Louisa the card game Euchre which we played until Greg announced that it was time for the Grand Croquet Tournament.

Croquet had been a feature of the holiday thus far, and although I was new to the game, I did ok. The anything-but-flat grassy area outside Greg's unit was the designated playing field, where on-lookers could sit in the shade as players smacked their ball around trees, dodged rocks, and attempted to roll up small hills. The Grand Final was won by Greg, despite the best efforts by Pirate Ben, with silver going to Rob and Bronze to Stephanie.

I decided on Saturday that the yoga pants were worth the $AU60+ and I asked Cheryl how far The Y was by foot. It was apparently too far, and Kathy Mac generously offered to drive me over. I soon had the pants in my hot little hands, and wrapped them in five layers of cotton wool and laser security as soon as we were home. Well, you know, I tucked them carefully into my suitcase at any rate.

Dinner was originally going to be Chinese food until I protested (i.e. commented audibly how nice the Mexican restaurants looked when we drove past them on the way to the casino on Thursday night) so we headed out to Chevy's Fresh Mex and piled around a table for 17. Angie presented various members of the group with knick-knack prizes: gold, silver and bronze souvenir keyrings for the croquet champs, a large pencil to our organiser Don, and a novelty Monopoly pinball pen for me (they didn't have Scrabble). Dinner was good, I had a bit of everything, and we left with stuffed stomachs and tequila headaches. We farewelled Don and birthday girl Kat, and Steph and Rob who had a very early start on Sunday.

Sunday itself was the day of goodbyes, which were atmospherically sad but not too physically emotional. Christine, Kev and I were left in unit 196 as we had evening flights out of Reno. We watched a doco on Tokyo before calling a taxi to take us into Stateline. We dropped our luggage at Montbleu and went across to the Horizon Casino to watch the movie "Accepted". Not as cheesy as I was expecting - I enjoyed the random slapstick comedy that occurred in the background of scenes, and also some of the jokes were deliciously dry. We then returned to Montbleu and caught the bus to Reno airport. Upon arrival we were informed that our flight had been delayed by 90 minutes - we could have watched another movie! The three of us wandered through the casino, looking for souvenirs (I bought the cutest bear ever!) and played some slots (I had a $US1 note that I wanted to part ways with anyway...) because taking up residence in a restaurant for our four hour wait. Christine bought some cards so we played Oh Bother, Oh Hell and Hearts, while picking at fries and sipping soft drink.

When our plane finally arrived we headed to our gate, only to have my bag searched at security (the officer was pleasant enough, he enjoyed the look of my monopoly pen which was the cause of the search - and also the x-ray provoked an officer to say "well, that's either a piece of fruit and a hairbrush, or something dangerous". Guess which?). Christine's nutritional syrup was to be confiscated, so she ran back to the restaurant to get a drink so she could at least take some of the syrup. As we finally boarded the plane we realised that the check-in officer had lied to us when she said our three seats were together - in fact Kev and I were sitting on the right of the plane, and Christine was sitting a row behind us, to the far left. Boo. The short flight to LAX was made very tense by the realisation that we were going to have about 40 minutes to run from our arrival gate to our international departure... The plane landed and the flight attendant informed the passengers that some people had very tight connections so we were to be let off the plane first... So we prepared to leave, as the plane... slowly... taxied around and around the airstrips looking for the gate... Oh my god I could have killed everyone on board. And to add insult to injury, we probably taxied right past the plane that would take us to Australia.

When we were finally at the gate, we waved goodbye to Christine and started some serious power-walking out of the terminal. Thankfully our bags were to be automatically transferred to our next flight (though I was quite sure they wouldn't make it, as checked luggage closes 45 minutes before the flight, and we only had about 30 minutes to get ourselves checked in). I wished fervently that I wasn't wearing my new pink shoes, as their strange flatness made running painfully impossible. My legs soon cramped from the awkwardness of power-walking in such crappy shoes. The distance between terminal 8 and the international terminal seemed impossible to cover in the few minutes we had left, but after a crippling 10 or so minutes it was in sight.

My most difficult to believe memory of the holiday: as we raced along the single footpath connecting the terminals, we saw a film crew set up ahead. I thought about going around them, and dodging the on-coming traffic, but I could see that the news reader was revising her lines, and therefore filming was not in progress. Kevin was in front of me and went to power through the film crew. A burly man stepped in front of him, put out his arm and said "you can't come through here." Reflecting the panic I was feeling, Kevin yelled "We're trying to get to our flight!" I was possessed by an unstoppable force and while Kev had stopped to yell at the man, I charged ahead. The same man put out his hand but I smacked it down and kept walking. The man again told Kev he would have to go around, but Kev soon followed me through the inactive film set.

What kind of people block the one and only footpath to film a bullshit news story such as the arrival of JonBenet Ramsey's suspected killer's arrival in a freaking airport?? Get over it! The story isn't more believable just because you're in front of the building! I still wish I'd been the one to be first stopped by that poncy producer - he'd have a black eye, a ringing in the ears and psychological trauma due to verbal harassment from an Australian. Ask my Mum if you don't believe I have a violent streak... It's waiting, dormant, for some inconsiderate &#%* to piss me off...

Anyway - we made it to the international terminal and to our joy the Qantas area wasn't nearly as full as it had been the night we first arrived in LAX, all those weeks ago. We rushed to the nearest counter and began the check-in dance. We handed over our details, and the three employees looked at each other, and asked us to wait a moment. They then slooowly wandered over to another area of the check-in counter and possibly asked whether it was too late for us to check in. Either way, they sloooowly returned and solemnly processed our information. AW YEAH! We made it! I wept with joy. Or maybe because now that I wasn't walking, I could feel the full force of my leg cramps... We went through security without a hurdle (I offered to bet with Kev that my bag would be searched, but since I took the monopoly game out of my bag and put it in the tub they obviously didn't see anything interesting. We rushed to our gate and lined up to board. That plane was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

The plane had lots of spare seats so after take-off the stranger beside us moved to an empty row, leaving us with lots of room. I spent the first hour or so completing my EPSS assignment for Uni, and then relaxed into the rest of the 14-or-so hour journey. We watched Keeping Mum which I had been dying to see for a long time - enjoyable but not as good as I expected. We then managed to sleep for most of the remaining journey, which made the likeliness of jetlag a little less definite, since we landed on Tuesday morning at just after 8am. The one out-of-the-ordinary moment of the flight was when they ran out of continental breakfasts and had to give me the first class cereal - wow. I'm talking real nuts and seeds. I had to declare my stomach contents at Customs. Bwahahaha... No, that was a joke. But how cool would it have been if the little sniffer dog had started barking at my gut?? Instead the sniffer dog was excited by my backpack, which reeked of the banana I had recently disposed off - it had gotten a bit black and squashed during the flights.

Our bags didn't make it, as I expected. But I sooo didn't care. We completed the necessary paperwork and went home via Skybus and a train. I didn't have a jumper, so I used my Qantas blanket (yes, I stashed it in my bag, I knew I'd be cold if our luggage wasn't on board) as a fashionable wrap. We took a train to Flinders St to grab a bite to eat as the Epping train was still 15 minutes away. As I ordered my Leonda (?) roll from Baguette, I noticed a familiar face beside me. Michael Veitch. I knew I was home.

Our bags joined us 36 hours later.