Last day in Heavenly...

Day 33, Mar 7th

We woke to a slightly overcast day. It had snowed during the night, an inch or two in the village but a foot reported at the top.

We had breakfast at the usual, Cabo Wabo Cantina, where we had the usual, 2 eggs over medium, sausages and a double serving of sourdough toast.

Clive and Lorraine then headed to the mountain, I piked it and Diane was never going anyway. Diane and I arranged to meet Clive and Lorraine at 2:30pm at the bottom of the gondola where we would buy a foot passenger ticket and take a trip up the gondola and have coffee at mid-station and a look from the viewing platform.

I played a bit of poker online for a few hours before we headed out at 1pm to do some shopping before meeting Clive and Lorraine. On the way, I passed a familiar arcade game. Does anybody remember the very early Tom Hanks movie 'Big'??...

We went to the big supermarket in the village where Diane stocked up on pills, potions, lotions and some cosmetics. I have no real idea of prices, but the girls assure me they are way cheaper then back in Australia. I took a look down the grog aisle and looking at those prices, I have no doubt that what they say is true, things are much cheaper. We noticed it earlier in the trip that some of the grog prices were ridiculously cheap. I took a few photos to prove the point...

Wild Turkey, less than $20 a 750 ml bottle...

Jim Beam, a 1.75 litre for less than $30...

Hendricks Gin, 750ml for $32...

...when I got back to the hotel, I looked at the Downtown Duty Free website and those prices were between 20% and 40% better than the duty free price in Australia.

We met Clive and Lorraine and we went up the gondola. Here are a whole lot of short videos I took on the way up and when we cam back down...













We jumped off at mid station where they have a viewing platform, a small retail shop and what we thought was a cafe. Unfortunately we only found out when we got there that the cafe only opened on weekends. The view was spectacular from a raised metal walkway which winds itself around a small summit for about 100m. Here are some of the shots I got off the viewing platform and from the gondola and a few shots of the trees, splendidly covered in snow...

We made our way back to the hotel after coffee and a donut at a 'Seattle's Best Coffee' outlet in the village. When we got back, the girls decided to go down and do some souvenir shopping and pick up a few things for special family members and friends whilst Clive and I readied ourselves for dinner. While I was getting ready, I noticed a now sunny mogul run up on the mountain...

The sun was also playing some nice tricks on the lake and the clouds as it set...

We had dinner at Harrah's in their 5* restaurant which was very, very nice. The bill was also pretty nice at over $300 + tip. Fortunately it was all covered by our rewards points, except the tip of course. We have now eaten for the past 4 days for nothing, including two posh dinners at bona fide 5* restaurants with $300+ bills. We still have a $50 coupon left which will pay for breakfast in the morning.

It's after midnight and I'm ready for bed. We check out in the morning and are booked on a 10:45am shuttle to Reno airport for a 2:55pm flight. That means we have the best part of 3 hours in Reno. After we arrive in LAX at 4:30pm, we have a 7+ hour wait until our plane leaves at 23:50 for a 15hr flight back to Australia. It looks like it will be one hell of a day, but should make it easy to get some sleep on the plane, providing we are at the pointy end, fingers crossed.

This will be the last blog entry until I get back to Australia where I will finish it up with all the happenings of the 30+hr travel day we have tomorrow. Thanks to everybody who has taken the time to read and leave comments. I've enjoyed bringing you the happenings of the trip, but I'm now REALLY tired and looking forward to coming home.

Until I'm back in Oz, later...