Ducky Solo Day 24, 25

So my friends and I decided to take a weekend trip to Tahoe for hiking, gambling, and more gambling.

McGriddle and Hash Browns

No trip is complete unless you begin it with some McDonald's breakfast.  We took a stop off in Davis to eat breakfast.  I couldn't decide whether to get the McGriddle or the Big Breakfast, but decided on the McGriddle with side orders of 2 hash browns.  Just as good as I remember it to be.

After a long, long drive of 4 hours, we finally make it to our destination at South Lake Tahoe.  The view was great, but man was it crowded. Had to drive down the road and park in the dirt along the highway much like John Muir Park.

Of course, after a long drive, I have to use the restroom to relieve myself before our long hike.

Yum

Look at all the Goodies!

Reminded me a lot of the toilet on top of Mt. Haleakala.  There was no sink or soap to wash my hands either.

Chipmunk

View of Eagle Lake?

We set out on our hike to reach Maggie's Peak.  The ranger made it sound like it was not that difficult of a hike.  We assumed it would be a simple 3 miles there and 3 miles back.  Boy were we wrong.  First, to get to the peak, we had to go off road and climb some large boulders to get to the top.  It was exciting but very tiring.  After we found the peak, we decided to continue on the trail, which supposedly connects and loops to another parking lot near where we started.  The entire journey took us nearly 6 hours to complete.  It took that long mainly because of stragglers in our group and we were all pretty exhausted.  What was supposed to be a 6 mile hike ended up being a 8-9 mile hike.  By the time we got down, the sun was beginning to set.  We were all super tired after this.

Fishies

Snack Time

I should have brought more water, but I made do with what I had.  My friend gave me his extra protein bar.  It actually tasted pretty good like chocolate mint.

Horrible Sushi Buffet

Our original plan was to go to Sushi Pier.  I went there in the past and remembered it being pretty decent.  However, when we called, they stated the wait time for 6 people could be 30-45 minutes.  This would leave us with only 30 minutes to eat before Last Call and closing of the kitchen.  We saw a sushi buffet a long the way and decided to stop there.  Yelp gave it about a 4 star and people made comments that the food was good.  I wish we had gone with our secondary plan to eat some steak.  First, the food came out so slow.  They gave us an order sheet like at dim sum places.  We picked our rolls and nigiri and handed it to the waitress.  Stuff came out very slowly.  One of our dishes didn't even come out until 30 minutes after we submitted our ticket.  Then we filled out a second ticket and just sat there waiting.  Nothing came out and the waitress asked us if we were done or still waiting.  We told her we were still waiting.  She went to check on what was left.  One of our last stragglers from the original ticket came out.  Then we just sat there waiting for our second set of order.  She came back to ask us if we were still waiting.  We said yes.  She went to check and the sushi chefs said our ticket was done.  We informed them that we had a second ticket and we handed it to the waitress earlier.  She apologizes and asks us to fill out another ticket and they will make everything ASAP.  At this point, I was very tired of this.  We were in the restaurant for nearly 1.5 hours most of the time was spent doing nothing.  They were very apologetic and gave us a free order of grilled hamachi kama and unagi sashimi.  This made us feel a bit better, but we still weren't completely happy.  When we were paying the bill, we found out that another big party left without paying the 15% gratuity because of some messed up orders or slow service too.  We paid our gratuity and ended up feeling kind of bad for them.  They did make a conscious effort to appease us after all.

Aside from the service, the food was subpar.  I went in not expecting much, but this was way worst.  Never have I seen in a sushi restaurant where over 70% of the rolls and nigiri had some kind of spicy sauce or spicy crab or spicy tuna.  I assume it was to cover up the fishy taste of not fresh fish.  The rolls were all super tiny.  I can't believe they would charge $12.00 for some of these tiny rolls.  I guess I can't expect much for a sushi restaurant in Reno,NV.  However, would I come here again? Answer is No.  I would rather eat steak.

After that fiasco, we went bowling at the Grand Sierra.  It was fun cosmic bowling, but so expensive.

Finally got to our hotel and checked in at like 11 pm.  My gambling friend went straight to the tables.  I watched them play for several hours and then went to bed.  I didn't really feel like gambling at all this trip.

The next morning, my friend told us he got a net gain of $975 at the blackjack tables last night.  He got a comped food credit added to his card and we used it at the Americana Cafe in Circus Circus.  Very mediocre crappy food that was not even worth taking a picture of.  Some of the food was obviously microwaved or burnt.  Owell, can't expect much.

We then went to South Lake Tahoe again and rented a speed boat.

Oh Captain, My Captain

We took turns driving the speed boat.  It was very fun, but scary at the same time.  Going 40 mph in choppy wavy waters was like a roller coaster.  I felt like I could have been thrown off at any second.  My friends were obsessed with gunning it and making the boat jump waves.  At one point, we were going so fast that a rubber wrapping on the side of the boat came loose and hit me in the face.  Good thing it was a flimsy piece or it would have hurt bad.  Scary, but fun overall.  We only rented the boat for an hour, but ended up using 10 gallons of gas.  I guess these speed boats are not very efficient in gas usage.

Overall, trip was fun and would do again.