I Run Like A Girl

This past weekend completely hit the spot. Me and my 7 closest girlfriends in SF got together and rented a yurt (a.k.a. a big fancy tent) in Colfax, a small town 1 hour outside of Tahoe. It was the first time all of the girls got together in almost 2 months, and so there was a lot of excitement building up for our yurt weekend.

I love this group of girls because we always choose ridiculous, unique things to do together. We always find excuses to celebrate things, so of course it would be us renting a big yurt together to “glamp” this weekend. 😛 Get ready for lots and lots of pictures:

Friday: drive to Colfax + yurt/hot tub time + sleepover

We split into two cars to drive up on Friday. I took a half day from work and left with the earlier car with Rene and Sarah since we wanted to get a head start on traffic. 3.5 hours, 1 In-n-Out burger, lots of chatting, and 1 nap later, we made it to Colfax!

We were greeted by the very sweet Airbnb hosts and they dove straight into giving us a tour of the property. I was completely blown away by 1) the amazing, beautiful Mongolian yurt built by the hosts, and 2) all the fun stuff there was to do at their place! The hosts really went above and beyond and thought of every detail to give whole place a quirky, relaxing vibe.

There was even a baby yurt – how cute!

After our tour, we jumped straight into the hot tub! I’m so glad the three of us got to the yurt early…we had an entire evening to enjoy the fun property; the sun was setting and we felt right at home.

Later in the night, the rest of the crew joined us! The vibe completely lit up as we reunited – I hadn’t seen Janice/Princess/Kayla since before Thailand! We were all eager to catch up with each other over some hot tub time. But first…poppin’ some champagne 🙂

Our excitement led us to staying up until 2am the first night. After the hot tub, we jumped into our pajamas, continued our endless talking and drinking, and played “What Do You Meme” in our yurt…basically a massive sleepover with my 8 favorite girls. I knew we were in for a treat this weekend 🙂

Saturday: pool time + winery + Colfax exploring 

We all somehow woke up on the early side on Saturday morning, chilling by the pool by 9am. We didn’t have much on the agenda since Colfax is a very small town (under 2000 people) and so the main attraction of the weekend was definitely hanging out in our yurt.

Our host made us the most DELICIOUS breakfast: creme brulee french toast, homemade maple sausage, curry vegetable frittata…I wish he cooked for us every day!

Our relaxing morning by the pool hit my happy spot with the sunshine + warmth (a rarity in SF)…I don’t think we stopped laughing the entire morning. We joked that when the 8 of us get together, it’s a “girls conference” since we talk about every single girl topic on our minds and catch up thoroughly over each of our lives…so rejuvenating.

We finally emerged from our yurt property at 1pm. We got a recommendation from our host to hit up Montoliva Winery, a small vineyard only a 10 minute drive from our place. We got there and was greeted by the owner of the vineyard – he gave us a personal, free wine tasting, letting us sample around 10 of his wines.

I was so impressed with the owner – he ran the entire vineyard single-handedly, farming all the grapes and running the operation by himself. I’m not the biggest wine person, but I really did enjoy drinking every single wine he made.

With these girls, wineries are basically our natural habitat. We have so much fun dressing up and hitting up wineries in the Bay Area; we tend to draw attention as we are super high-energy, especially when tipsy 😛 but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

After a lovely afternoon in the vineyard, we headed back to the yurt. A few girls took a nap while the rest of us hung outside of the trailer (which acted as our kitchen), snacking away on some fresh fruit and drinking more wine.

Then it was dinner time! Also time to finally exploring “downtown” Colfax. Since we were in the middle of nowhere, we opted to walk #lifewithoutuber

8 hungry girls = we ordered 8 whole pizzas. We were definitely ambitious ordering so much food but we impressively finished every bite by the end of the night 😛

“Downtown Colfax” is really just one Main Street. It literally took 5 minutes to see it all; it felt like a whole different world being in such a small town. We hit up the one bar in town, and the locals were definitely curious why 8 girls from SF decided to come to Colfax 😛

Our night ended back at the yurt with some more hot tub time and more wine. We slept a little earlier than the previous night as we had been out in the sun and drinking since morning.

Sunday: lake picnic

We were up early once again! I guess all of our body clocks were still on our work schedule :P. Back to the pool for some morning chillaxing before we checked out.

Some casual yoga on the pool deck 🙂

Group shot with our yurt – we didn’t want to leave!

For lunch, we went to a local deli and picked up some sandwiches, and then we drove to Bear River for a river-side picnic (also recommended by our host). For some reason I was expecting a little dinky river, but as we pulled up to the campground, I was blown away. The river had such beautiful views and was filled with the classic, tall trees characteristic to Lake Tahoe. There was hardly anyone on the campgrounds which is completely unheard in the hiking trails/parks closer to SF…so it was amazing having it all to ourselves. This blog knows that being outside and especially by the water is my happy spot. I was in heaven.

We plopped down, opened our last bottle of champagne, and enjoyed our food and sunshine. I’m so glad we stayed a bit longer in Colfax versus heading home early as most people do on Sunday to beat Tahoe traffic. It really was worth it to get some more quality time together and spend time by the beautiful river.

And just like that, our wonderful trip came to a close and we headed home. What an amazing weekend filled with all our favorite things: sunshine, pool, winery, lots of laughter, being extra and ridiculous…and somehow, despite being around 8 crazy, energetic girls and doing all the activities we did, I am feeling even more relaxed after this weekend than when it started…it just goes to show how close we’ve all become and how we can be totally ourselves around each other. ❤

I’m seriously thankful for these 8 girls; never have I had a group of girlfriends where there is literally ZERO drama – we never argue, get upset, or anything…I feel like that has to be a world record or something. Being with these girls just leads to instant laughing fits and truly feeling good about myself; they are all so positive and non-judgmental which is why I love surrounding myself with them.

There are going to be lots of changes this summer with Whitney moving away, Rene going on her 6-month solo trip, and more…it’s definitely sad, but I’m focusing on being grateful for the time we have together now. So thankful for this weekend ❤