You know me, I can't complain

On January 1st I left Manitowoc at 4:45am and arrived in Vail, CO to visit Dylan, a good friend from college around 1pm.  I had quite possibly the best riding I've ever experienced in Vail(until Tahoe).  Right before I got there they got dumped on, and while I was there they got close to two feet of snow.  One of the days Dylan and I shoe-shoed up a trail and created a little kicker(jump).  After entertaining ourselves and each other on the jump we snowboarded down the path right to his truck, which was stuck in the road.  Randomly a tow truck found us and towed us out.  Overall I snowboarded 4 days in Vail, and snow-shoed the other day, and had a great time there.  Dylan was a great host and has a sweet place about twenty minutes west of the base of the mountain.  

From Vail, my ski trip continued.  After dodging avalanches and catching some late connecting flights I met up with the Hoofers Ski and Snowboard club in Reno, NV where we caught a bus and checked into our hotel.  The Block Hotel looked like it would be amazing, but it is really just a standard hotel, but our initial disappointment was more than made up by the amazing snow here in Heavenly Ski Resort.  I'm calling today the best day ever of riding.  That is quite the proclamation, but the powder was amazing.  All afternoon I rode steep, deep and fresh snow, right from the base.  I felt like I was cheating.  Aren't you suppose to hike to get amazing powder runs?  Apparently not.  After that, I took care of some business for my Chile visa application and then my roommates Jake, Brett and I walked around the town and then ventured into the casinos across the road in Nevada(Our hotel is in California) where I had my first experience gambling.  We sat down at a blackjack table and I ended up $20 up.  Not bad.  Jake ended up $150 up and bought Brett and I dinner at the all you can eat buffet.  Now we're just waiting for tomorrow so we can ride some more of the fresh powder.  We got up to 15 inches again today, to add to the ~9 feet they got here over the last 4 days.