The first vacation of my life was at Lake Tahoe. I was born in Sacramento, CA. Practically my whole family has a love affair with Tahoe. During my high school years we had a cabin a few miles from the lake and my mom would spend the entire summer there with various family members visiting off and on (I am the youngest of seven siblings and there were always numerous nieces and nephews coming along).
Since Mary had not really experienced Lake Tahoe, I was anxious to share it with her. We stayed on the Nevada side at Zephyr Cove campground. The campground is very nice and fairly large. Our site, however, was right along the highway and quite noisy. It was okay though, since we didn’t hang around the campsite much.
The weather was clear and cool, but actually felt quite warm in the sunshine. Mary and I enjoyed hiking the Pacific Crest trail both north and south from Hwy 50. Hiking among the huge granite slabs with blue sky and blue water is breathtaking (especially at 8,000 ft elevation). I actually took the first hike of my life at Tahoe. The hike is a steep one-mile up granite slabs from Emerald Bay to Eagle Lake. At the age of sixteen my high school girlfriend and I started out with our picnic lunch and “Mickey Mouse” thermos. We never made it to Eagle Lake. Somehow, we lost the trail and got stuck on some very large boulders that are much easier to climb up than down. We turned back after “Mickey” fell off a boulder and got shattered to pieces. I finally made it to Eagle Lake almost 40 years later with Mary.
I always remember the Tahoe area as smelling especially “piney”. I finally found out why. I had always assumed that most of the pines were Ponderosas, but Mary discovered that the vast majority are Jeffrey pines. These pines are especially aromatic and if you stick your nose near the bark you can smell the aroma of butterscotch or vanilla. Neither of us had heard of Jeffrey pines before. As it turns out, Jeffreys are only prevalent in the High Sierras and are dominant over Ponderosas at higher elevations.
Tahoe is an interesting combination of exceptional natural beauty, tacky development, smoky noisy casinos, the clearest water I have ever seen in a large lake, broad open spaces, beautiful houses and bad traffic. The different communities around the lake each have their own character. Some are boating oriented, others snow skiing, the Stateline areas have the casinos, and there are a whole lot of small national forest campgrounds and beaches all around the lake. Except for the few large casinos most of the lodging options are small family owned motels and resorts with a few of the larger chain motels scattered about. Unfortunately the water is quite cold even in the height of summer, but boating, water skiing, sailing and beach going is very popular, and because the lake is so large (22 miles by 12 miles) it is never crowded on the water.
My sisters Margie, Cheryl and Tammy, and my brother Tim joined us for a few days. It was great to see them, and to relive some of the old Tahoe memories and stories. Margie’s daughter Christie and grandkids also joined us for an afternoon.
Mary and I bade farewell to Tahoe on September 20th which also happens to be our anniversary. We weren’t sure how far we could drive, but our goal was to be in a place with some good restaurants for our anniversary dinner. Luckily, we were able to make it all the way to Bend, OR. Jack and Nancy had recommended the Pines Tavern Restaurant and we were finally able to eat there. The food was really good and they even gave us free Crème Brule!
This trip made us realize the wonderful natural and manmade diversity that California has to offer, and on a large scale too. Mary and I have both lived in California before and we don’t really want to live there again, but we do think it would be great to spend the better part of a year exploring the full-range of California, enjoying summer in the mountains, winter in the desert and spring or fall on the coast or in the vineyards. No other state has every climate and habitat like California does.
We got home on September 21st and now it is time to prepare for fall and winter. We are scheduling an open house for the weekend of October 22-23 as a last-ditch effort to sell the house before winter sets in. We are having a contest to see if I can win the lottery before we sell the house. Right now it looks neck and neck.
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