Zermatt, Switzerland

Finally, some downtime to write about our amazing last several days! We:

• Flew out of SFO on Wednesday. (Fun fact: There were at least five other Googlers on the same flight to Zurich. We recognized five, but there may well have been more.)
• Landed in Zurich on Thursday afternoon. We worked for a couple hours, and then shuttled off to the Google Christmas party.
• Scrambled around Friday morning to find power adapters and SIM cards. We then worked for a few more hours, and took a three-hour train ride to Zermatt.
• Skied on a glorious, sunny Saturday, underneath the Matterhorn.
• Strolled around Zermatt on Sunday morning, took the train back to Zurich, and then strolled around Zurich while sipping Glühwein and watching pre-Christmas festivities in the city.

Now, Chris has found a way to stream the Patriots-Bears game, and we have some time to relax.

Here are the pictures from our Zurich/Zermatt adventures (so far). For once, I wish I could write about all my pictures, but since they're really painful to import into Blogger, I actually added captions in Picasa, and I'll only post my favorites.

Front and center at Zermatt is the Matterhorn, of course! I didn't really believe how close we would be until we got there. And how lucky were we, to get such a crystal clear sunny day?!

Before the trip, we were super-psyched about the idea of skiing into Italy. I'd read about a particular run called "Red 7" which is an intermediate run starting from Switzerland and ending in Cervinia, Italy. It's been called one of the top intermediate runs in the world. But sadly, the top of the "Matterhorn glacier paradise" wasn't open.

We ended up spending the day on the blue (easy) and red (intermediate) slopes around Gornergrat and Trockener Steg, and had a ton of excitement. We took our first ski lesson at Squaw in Tahoe the previous weekend, and thought we'd improved by such an amazing amount (hooray, Level Four skiers) that we could tackle lots of reds, but it turns out the blues at Zermatt were quite challenging enough for us.

The conditions were a bit icier than they were at Tahoe last week, and we both took a bunch of spills, but we managed to make it all the way down from Gornergrat to Furi. WOOHOO!! Our reward was a yummy, warm,  ~$15 (!!!) cup of goulash soup. (People are not joking when they say Switzerland is expensive.)

Toward the end of the day, we went up to the highest slope open, a wide, gentle blue one with magical powdery snow, a fantastic view, and best of all, very few people! Gornergrat was extremely crowded with (in my humble, level four opinion) really good skiers that went intimidatingly fast. Up at the blue run above Trockener Steg (the one with the t-bar lift), close to the time the sun was setting, it seemed like we had the whole mountain to ourselves. We felt so lucky.

Staying at Hotel Antares

At the advice of my teammates who organized the trip, we booked at Hotel Antares, a hotel that was practically next door to the Matterhorn Express Gondola Station. Google Maps says it's 110 meters.

View Larger Map

The location was perfect for someone with short legs and who can't really walk in ski boots. There was an ATM at the station, and the rental shop, Dorsaz Sports, was right across the street and a short elevator ride down. Couldn't be easier.

The hotel itself was cozy. I thought the furnishings in room were a little faded-looking, though very clean and comfy. There was a nifty balcony with a view of the mountains and the river Vispa. The most annoying thing was that the bathroom, which looks so sleek and new, had an absurdly low shower head, below chest-level for me, and I'm 5'2". But the location was so excellent that I didn't mind, and we loved the breakfast – delicious croissants (I had no idea croissants were supposed to taste so good), lots of meats and cheeses, and Nutella!

As I wrap up writing about Zermatt, I'll leave you with one more awesome picture. That's right, an ad for a Swiss Army knife with a laser pointer and USB key.

More on Zurich some other day! Again feel free to look at the album if you want to see more.

Sean and Dani's Wedding

Another lovely weekend in Colorado Springs last weekend. This time, we went out for Chris's cousin Sean's wedding, which was held at the beautiful Shove Memorial Chapel.

And yes, the chapel did have an office. :-)

It was a very pretty rose-themed wedding, and we all had a fantastic time!

I uploaded lots more pictures of the weekend on my Picasa account, so feel free to browse.

But the fun didn't stop with the wedding. On Saturday, we threw an 80th birthday party for Chris's Great Aunt Mary. Since Uncle Ray graciously hosted, we were once again treated to barbecue from Rudy's. We demolished FIVE pounds of meat, which is not bad for eleven people!

On Sunday we were mostly on our own, so we toured the Celestial Seasonings factory in Boulder, as well as the Butterfly Pavilion in Broomfield. The tour of the fea factory was interesting; we learned that the top three bestsellers for Celestial Seasonings are actually not tea at all. They're "herbal infusions" since they contain no tea leaves. The weirdest flavor was probably the blueberry green tea; it actually tasted less like tea and more like weak blueberry juice, but it was kind of tasty.

Air Force vs Navy

Continuing the tradition that the Taylors and Staceys started last year, we had Mini Family Reunion 2.0 in Colorado Springs last week. Like last time, the ostensible main event was a college football game, but since Andrew was in London, we got tickets to the Air Force vs Navy game. Chris has a cousin who graduated from the Naval Academy (and is now in the Marines), and another cousin in the Navy, so it was at least somewhat relevant.

After the pig roast from last year, tailgating this year was rather tame in comparison, but it was a lovely day. Here's Falcon Stadium, as we were walking in.

And here's the obligatory fly-over. I think these were WWII era planes. Later we got a fly-over by four awesome jets, though I don't remember exactly what they were. I remember hearing the announcer saying "eagles" so maybe they were F-15s? Anyways, pretty cool.

There was a lot of pomp and ceremony before the game too, which was nifty to watch. A bunch of cadets from Air Force (and some from Navy too!) marched onto the field led by various Cadet Colonels whose names and hometowns were announced over the loudspeaker.

The Air Force was wearing green flight suits, and the Navy was wearing white. The football players for Air Force were wearing interesting uniforms too; all the shirts either said "Freedom" or "Service" on the back – no names.

Possibly the coolest piece of minutia (for someone who holds a personal best of 13 push-ups in a minute), was seeing how buff and fit all the cadets were. Whenever Air Force scored, a couple dozen members from the stands had to get out on the field and do a push-up for every point. Of course, the final score was only 14-6, but but DANG they were FAST. Made me wonder what my life would be like if I'd gone to a military academy.

The synchronized cheering was awesome too; they were way more loud and organized than any student section I'd seen (which is admittedly not many, but still). I think my favorite was a "YOU-CAN'T, DO-THAT" chant (you know, that same sing-song chant that people do "LET'S-GO, RED-SOX" to). Air Force did that one when Navy got a penalty.

Anyways, fun weekend, lots of great food and company, and some pretty hiking around Garden of the Gods. The extra red blood cells and motivational push-up watching helped me have a good workout at the gym on Monday too!

Howard's Wedding in St. Louis

Last weekend, our good friend Howard got married out in St. Louis. Congrats Howard and Emily!
He, John, and Chris had a fun mini high school reunion, which is apt, since this is the year of our 10th high school reunion.

Now, we've been to a bunch of weddings at this point, but Howard and Emily threw a really spectacular one that had waaaay delicious food. Lobster bisque, caprese salad, the tenderest tenderloin...and LOOK at this dessert buffet!

In addition to the terrific food, Howard and Emily's wedding won the award for Best Special Effects, haha.

Fireworks show! So awesome!

What else did we do in St. Louis? Chris, John and I made the obligatory visit to the Gateway Arch, which was very Halo-esque. It was also very fun to take pictures of, but I'll only subject you to my favorite one.

After waiting in a looooooong line, we went up to the top of the arch in one of these little claustrophobic pods (the so-called "tram").

By the time we finally got to the top, we were running late for the wedding, so we stayed for only about 30 seconds. (I mean this quite literally.) But it wasn't really a huge loss...we all now agree with Howard that the arch is indeed a "tourist trap" and "overrated". The view from the bottom was much cooler than the view from the top, I thought. Still, I'm glad we did it at least once.

The next day, we braved the crowds once more to visit Forest Park and the (free admission!) St. Louis Zoo. Favorite animal of the day? Take a wild guess.

Yeah, missed my girls. :-)

I also enjoyed seeing a real okapi, after looking at the model on Daniel's desk every morning.

There wasn't any time to make the reunion complete and have a nice D&D session...but we'll save that for next time, heehee.

Lots more pictures of the weekend here, if you want to see them!

USTA Playoffs and Districts

This season, I joined three USTA teams, and as luck (or skill, haha) would have it, two of the teams made it to playoffs, and one of them made it all the way to districts! Here's a cool picture of me playing with my 3.0 team, University Club of Palo Alto. (Thanks Chris!)

But wait...isn't that... Jenn in a SKIRT?! Let it be known, that's the team uniform (white top, red bottom). And I couldn't find red tennis shorts. Rick told me "wow, that's the best tennis outfit I've seen all day" the first time he saw me wearing it. And then he secretly told Chris "well, it doesn't look like her personality at all, but I was trying to be encouraging." Gee, thanks coach. But yeah, usually I wear the colors of intimidation: black tank + black shorts, GRRRRR! :-)

In the spirit of honesty, I should probably note that most pictures of me playing tennis do not look awesome. Here's a particularly horrible one of me doing everything wrong on a serve. BAD BAD BAD. Open racquet, open shoulders, AND a foot fault. So embarrassing. :-( But actually having this picture was the main thing that motivated me to work on my serve this summer!

Anyways, my 3.0 team ended up losing in the playoffs. I lost my match, excruciatingly, in the third set, when I had to retire with a calf cramp. I've never had a calf cramp before, but this one was bad. It took almost twenty minutes to even get my toes to uncurl. Lesson learned, drink more water on hot days!

My 3.5 team made it to the district championships, which were held in Folsom. The luckiest thing ever happened with our assignment of venues; Chris's team ALSO made it to districts and got assigned to Folsom! This was pretty seriously improbable, given that districts were being played all over NorCal that weekend, but it meant we got to hang out and watch each other's matches, which was fun.

Here's a shot of a slightly improved serve at districts.

Wearing the so-called "colors of intimidation" in 95 degree heat was possibly retarded, but oh well, haha. Both of our teams ended up losing, but I managed to win one doubles match with my partner Cindy, and we had a good time. Better luck next year!

Flying Fortress in Denver

Shockingly, it's September already. Where did the summer go?! Oh yeah, I guess that's what I'm supposed to be writing about. :-)

In June, about a week after we got back from Yellowstone, we flew out to Denver to visit Andrew and Lindsay, who both got internships at Lockheed Martin. We happened to be in town at the same time as the "Flying Fortress," which is a B-17 bomber from WWII. It was refurbished so that people could actually sign up to fly in it, for a few hundred dollars. We actually thought about it, but ended up just taking a ground tour.

The ground tour reminded us that planes have come a LONG way since WWII. A bunch of space on the plane was taken up by racks of big bulky radios, one for each frequency they wanted to hear. At one point, I saw a bunch of cylindrical tanks in a corner, and asked the tour guide what they were for. That's when I was reminded that the cabin wasn't pressurized and that people needed the tanks for air.

Unless thing was going to stay under 10,000 feet (and given that Denver is already at 6,000 feet, so it was probably unlikely), I was glad we decided not to fly!

We also had fun doing short hikes. At the lake near the Lockheed offices, we saw monster dandelion fluffs (my hand included for scale).

Snake River and Alpine Slides!

Finally, it was time to say goodbye to Yellowstone. We checked out, and after a brief kerfuffle with the front desk about the bill ("um, I think this charge is off by at least $1000..."), and a parting visit to the gift shop (where Kasandra finally bought herself that cute "I'm Your Hucklebeary" shirt), we were on our way south to Grand Teton (again).

Signal Mountain

On the way south, we drove up to the top of Signal Mountain and saw both a great view, and this funny sign. If anyone can make sense of why it says "UserFee" on it, please tell me!

It seemed apt that we would have five bars at a place called Signal Mountain. This was probably the reason:

Our next activity was to do a scenic float on the Snake River, but the outfitters said it would be too windy to go out until the late afternoon. So how to burn a few hours?

Answer 1: EATING!
Answer 2: ALPINE SLIDES!

We had a delicious lunch at Dornan's Pizza and Pasta Company in Moose, WY. We had really yummy pizza, pasta, and beer – a perfect lunch, in a dining room with a spectacular view of the mountains.

Alpine Slides in Jackson

After lunch, we still had some time to burn, and we weren't sure what to do in Jackson, so we figured we would just...check into our hotel early? This seemed somewhat boring to us, so during the drive from Dornan's to Jackson, I frantically looked for things to do on my Nexus One. I suddenly remembered Uncle sending me a link about alpine slides, and managed to look up where it was, find out their ticket prices, and text the other van about the change of destination. I LOOOVE my data plan!

The alpine slides at Snow King Resort ended up being totally, totally awesome. (What else would you expect? I mean, *alpine slides*!)

Mom and Dad needed to be convinced that it wasn't dangerous, and they ended up going down sooooo slow that I got worried and asked the guy at the desk to radio up and check on them. But in the end, nobody fell out of the lift, had a heart attack, or broke any bones going off track. Everyone was all grins at the bottom – possibly the biggest grins we saw all trip!

Except maybe Tiffany, who got stuck behind speed-demon Kasandra. :-)


Scenic Float on the Snake River

Originally, I was completely gung-ho about taking the group white water rafting. Mom has always wanted to go, and of course, Chris and I had an amazing time on our three-day trip down the Rogue River in Oregon. But a week of snow and ice convinced us that perhaps getting soaked in frigid water in gusting wind and rain wouldn't be that much fun. So we went on the scenic float and hoped that we would spot some wildlife.

On the drive out, we briefly spotted a moose. On the float itself, we saw a couple beavers building dens, and a pair of bald eagles! Here's a shot of one of them sitting on a branch. I saw its mate sitting in the nest across the river, but couldn't quite catch it on camera.

We were also amused to find that beavers really do chew through the bases of trees like they do on cartoons!

Still, it was cold and we were happy to get someplace warm and have dinner! We thought our folks would appreciate some Chinese food (finally), and went to the Chinatown Restaurant in Jackson. The big "kids plus Ama" table thought the food was yummy, but when I asked my Dad what he thought, he was surprisingly frank: "Oh it was terrible. Everything tasted the same." In retrospect, I guess that was totally true, but still, I thought it was satisfying. We're such gringos. :-)

The menu even had a big tipoff how Americanized it was: "American Delights: French Fries". Ha!

And finally, for our last night together, we stayed at the Trapper Inn and Suites (a.k.a. The Lexington) and played poker, spoons, and Monopoly (the card game) into the wee hours of the night.

The End

Who knows when we'll EVER be lucky enough to get everyone's schedule lined up like this again, but wow that was a lot of fun memories! The sequel, I'm told, might happen in China – but we'll see!

Grand Teton and Jenny Lake

By our sixth day, we figured that we'd seen enough pools of steaming water, so we drove down to Grand Teton National Park to get a change of scenery! Besides the breathtaking snow-capped Tetons, the main attraction here was Jenny Lake.


We debated whether we should hike around the whole lake (Jenny Lake Loop is a ~7 mile loop), or just do a small piece, but once we arrived at the visitor center, we found a great compromise; there was a shuttle boat crossing the lake every 15 minutes, so we could hike ~3.5 miles to Hidden Falls and Inspiration Point, and then take the boat back to the trailhead. Perfect!

On the trail, we saw this funny-looking bird, standing literally a foot off the trail.

Its head looked distinctly snake-like, and yet its feathers reminded us of a turkey. Kally dubbed it Snurkey. Looking at a hotel wildlife classifier brochure, we thought it was a sage grouse, but Wikipedia now tells us that it's really a ruffed grouse.

Chris and I also spotted a couple of marmots off the trail, but they scrambled away quickly so we couldn't get a picture.

To get to Hidden Falls, we had to hike across some snow, but wow, it was awesome. It was the tallest cascading waterfall I'd ever seen, and I thought it was even cooler than Lower Falls in Yellowstone.

Our steep climb up to Inspiration Point was rewarding too. Gorgeous view.

But who's looking at the view, right? :-P I think Chris may have been most inspired at having cell reception.

Plus there were some very people-friendly chipmunks... It seemed like *someone* (i.e. maybe three someones) had been feeding them.

For dinner, we ate at the Jackson Lake Lodge, which was probably our group's favorite restaurant of the trip. They served us moose-shaped butter!

Kally recommended the Jackson Lake Lodge because it had a lovely view of the Tetons from the dining room, and her friend mentioned that it was a great place to watch wildlife.

I don't know if this is funny or just truly awful, but while I was looking at those lovely mountains, all I could think of was the Coors "Love Train" commercial. And Kasandra said she was thinking about Arrowhead Water. How sad is that?

Lower Falls, Norris, Cody Rodeo, and WOLVES

A couple weeks (and a trip to Colorado) later, I'm finally back to finish writing about the trip to Yellowstone!

Day 5 was a long, exciting day – so long and exciting that we actually got complaints from the peanut gallery. We woke ourselves up with a steep, slippery, nerve-wracking 325-stair descent to get up close and personal with the beautiful Lower Falls. Then we moved on to Norris Basin, where ominous storm clouds and thunder threatened to drench us at any moment. Then we witnessed a pack of wolves feasting on coyote cubs after chasing away the parents. And THEN we drove out to Cody, WY to watch the Cody Nite Rodeo, which was pretty fun to see overall, but man, the icing on the cake was their borderline-bigoted-misogynistic-homophobic MC to REALLY make us feel we were in the Wild West.

But let's start from the beginning!

Grand Canyon of Yellowstone: Lower Falls

As you might remember, our first attempt to see the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone was mostly foiled by the fog. Our second attempt was much more rewarding. We drove to the South Rim and hiked down 3/4s of the way down to the bottom of Lower Falls. The stairs were slick because of rain and little waterfalls splashing across the path.

I've always been afraid of heights, and being able to see through the metal grate stairs was not comforting. Even more disturbing was the number of dented or bent stairs, which made us think, hm, maybe we should have eaten less for breakfast... Mom stayed behind, but the rest of us helped each other down.

Even my cousins' Ama made it, and she's almost 80!

Finally, here's the view at the bottom.


Grand Canyon of Yellowstone: Artist's Point

After huffing and puffing our way back up (no really, it's the altitude, I'm in better shape than that, honest!), we drove out to Artist's Point, where we were treated to a rare but perfectly-timed beam of sunshine.


Norris Geyser Basin

The Norris Geyser Basin is supposed to be the most volcanically active area in Yellowstone, and as such, we read that the landscape is constantly changing. We didn't see any of the big geysers go off, though we did see little Whirligig Geyser send up a nice tall plume for a few seconds. Otherwise, we just took pictures of all the fascinating colors, while hustling along to finish before the threatening thunderstorm.


This one below was called Pearl Geyser, which I thought was a cool name.

And there was a monster sighting at Green Dragon Spring!

Wolves in Hayden Valley

As the trip progressed, we improved at spotting interesting wildlife, not by spotting wildlife itself, but by gauging the number of cars parked by the road and the number of people with fancy tripod-mounted cameras.

Lots of traffic => "This is MAJOR!"

This is how we spotted the wolves. They were far away on the crest of a hill, so I don't understand how anyone could see them without knowing what to look for! This is probably my best picture, pardon my sad 3x zoom again. If you squint you can see the silhouette of a black wolf right in the center of the picture.


When we got out of our vans, we saw a black wolf and a grey wolf, chasing what we thought was another light-colored wolf down the hill. Turns out the light-colored one was a coyote, which the ranger said had been trying to misdirect the wolves from its den since 10 a.m. Other visitors mentioned that the wolves had been digging for some time, and the ranger confirmed that they were hunting for the coyotes' den and cubs.

Kally, with her macho 7x zoom, even got a picture of the black wolf with something hanging from its mouth, so awesome! Isn't it almost cannibalistic for wolves to be eating coyote babies though?

Cody Nite Rodeo

All of this unplanned wolf-watching made us somewhat behind-schedule to make the two-hour drive to Cody, WY. We considered postponing the trip, but were told that it would snow the next day and the roads might be closed. Plus, my uncle and parents had heard from a friend that there was *gasp* Chinese food in Cody, so we decided to head out! Haha, so cute.

We played "I Spy" in our van, but got stuck on Z. I think Tommy said "zygote" (we had a six-character minimum rule), and we were like, um, I certainly HOPE you don't spy a zygote. (And also "I spy with my little eye" implies little *unassisted* eye. That was also a rule.)

Ultimately, we didn't have quite enough time for Chinese food. Here was the sad conversation we had when we got to the stadium:

Chris: "Don't worry, it looks like they have food here."
Mom: "You mean, like...hot dogs?" (Looking sad, kind of queasy.)
Employee: "Oh yeah! Hot dogs, and barbecue too! The food here is really great. And at a good price too!"

(Employee sees the look on Mom's face, getting sadder and more queasy-looking.)

Employee: "At least, *I* think so..."

Poor Chinese parents. But actually, the food was yummy. They had kosher hot dogs, and I liked the barbecue better than the Cowboy restaurant in Gardiner, MT (less vinegary).

The events were also fun: bucking horses, bucking bulls, individual calf roping, pair calf roping, barrel racing, and junior versions of most of the above too.


My first inkling that something was weird was when the MC made the comment before one of the women's events that this was the "most dangerous event in rodeo" (or something like that) because "it's all women driving". Yeah okay. Ha. Ha. Joke. Fine. Then before the ladies' calf roping event, he asked, "why do the ladies only need to rope the calf, but not tie it down?" And then proceeded to sort of taunt the event, going "yeah ladies, what happened to equal rights?" I was like...hm. And THEN there was that awful intermission act which culminated in the MC sticking his head between this woman's legs (an actor I'm sure, but still), and making fun of her big butt. Yeeecch.

Oh right, and then there was the part where the MC welcomed visitors from various countries (France, UK, Belgium, etc.). Then he asked the Californians to cheer, and said "Welcome to the real America!". Totally lame. Chris and I both shouted loud boos. I think I was most appalled because he was saying this to my family, a bunch of minorities sitting in the front row, and it reminded me of the George Allen "macaca" thing in Virginia a few years back. But then I realized he probably couldn't see us, and figured okay, just another bad joke, ha ha.

I don't think I'll even go into the comments he made about gays or Obama. But I will close with one last awful snippet of the show, which was that they had a straw man propped up in the center of the arena during the bull riding event. Those bulls are BIG, STRONG animals. One pissed-off bull, after bucking his rider, charged the straw man, and just sort of...blew through him like it was...well a straw man. It was a little horrifying because it was such a vivid illustration of what might happen if someone didn't dodge fast enough.

What DIDN'T need to happen, was the MC insisting that it was Bill Clinton getting what he deserved. And then kicking it around some more. In the nuts. Sigh.

I must say I was shocked that these comments were being made in public, but I guess Wyoming is really a different part of the country!

Cutest part of the rodeo:

• All the little kids in the audience were invited to come into the arena and try to pull ribbons off of three calves' tails for a prize. So cute...baby cows are much better at running than baby humans.
• There was a kid (must have been 4 years old or so), who did his barrel race at a walk. Reminds me of how I did barrel racing at Don-E-Brook, haha.

At 10 p.m. we began the long, mountainous drive back to Yellowstone, in the rain and fog. I can't say I blame the peanut gallery for being tired, but it was definitely a memorable day!