Reno Rendezvous 2010 - Day 6

Meanwhile, back at the ranch (in Tahoe that is)...

I was looking forward to breakfast on Friday morning. Stacy has a favorite morning-food restaurant down in South Tahoe she is always talking about, so after we bundled up the kids we all headed downhill to the lake and Heidi's Restaurant. Big omelets (mine with Italian sausage!), piles of pancakes and lots of colorful berry syrups guaranteed to defeat any stain remover they come up against! Suddenly it was time to sleep again. But we didn't!





Dad felt that that big, taunting jackpot was still waiting patiently for him at the casino, so we dropped him off at Harrahs. Stacy, however, had decided to take an even bigger gamble. Inspired by our day on the slopes, she decided, against her own better judgment, to reclaim her youth, vitality, and her dimly remembered life of spontaneity and whimsy and return to snowy reaches. Skibunny Stacy was dropped off at the Heavenly Ski Resort base camp with strong admonitions to avoid trees and avalanches in specific and boys in general. Abandoning Stacy to contend with the yeti, Mimi, L, N and I set off on our own little adventure.

My idea of an outdoorsy vacation is more aligned with a hiking, camping and canoeing sort of paradigm. Much too cold to go out on the lake or to contemplate camping, but I reserved hope that a hike was still doable. With that in mind I'd researched some light-weight hiking trails in and around the lake area and found a couple that looked promising. I chose a short hike that went through a forested area to Fallen Leaf Lake, a pretty little lake just south of Tahoe proper. Not knowing what to expect for snow and passability, I was prepared to be disappointed, but we were able to find the trail and it was sufficiently packed down that it made for quite a nice stroll. L and N were off like snow panthers, bounding off the trail and quickly up to their waists in the drifts. Several snowsucked boots had to be dug out and reattached. The trail wound through woodlands on the edge of a campground (obviously closed for the season), opening on meadows and hopping not-quite-frozen streams. There were rabbit tracks and deer tracks to be identified and followed, logs to be surmounted and boulders to be skirted. N, worse than a Labrador retriever, left a considerable number of little patches of yellow snow.











After running flat for half a mile, the trail made a gentle rise up a slope to a table land overlooking Fallen Leaf Lake. Not wanting to overextend ourselves, we halted at the top and left the descent to the lakeshore for another day. The kids were still happy and energetic, but we figured that to be mercurial and we didn't want to press our luck. After a rest and a particularly refreshing boulder-climb we returned the way we came.

















I promised Mimi that I would in no way recount how on the descent back down the hill we hit one part of the trail that she thought a little challenging, and I assured her that I would refrain from describing in any detail how, at the end of considering all her manifold options, she chose to simply sit down on the trail and slide all the way down on her bum. I also vowed to remain very discrete in relating how nicely wide and well-groomed the smoothed out trail looked after her passing, and to forego mentioning a certain soggy seat one member of our party had on returning to the car. So having made all those promises, I of course can't tell you about that part at all. Sorry.



Once back to the car the kids' joie de vivre evaporated and we headed back to the condo for a change of clothes and attitude. We had a quick lunch at a nearby pub and before we were done we got a "come pick me up" call from Stacy. Back down the hill we found Mommy smiling and, to my relief, in one contiguous piece. We checked on Grampy, but he had financial independence in his sights and was quite happy to remain at Harrahs to deprive them of their profits. Relating the highlights of our hike with Mimi, Stacy was inspired to venture forth again and see the countryside. She suggested a mini-cartrip over to Emerald Bay; she's often told me how much she loved the area and how much she thought I'd appreciate it.

And I did appreciate it, but it was a very good thing that my Dad decided to cast his lot with the gambling crowd and not with us pioneers. The ride to Emerald Bay was truly spectacular, but of the exact sort that would have sent Dad into phobic paralysis. The road to Emerald Bay is the same one we'd taken earlier to Fallen Leaf Lake and initially stays relatively close to the lake, running through woods and small hamlets. Not too far past the turn off to Fallen Leaf Lake, however, it starts making its way up the mountains that line the western shores of Lake Tahoe. These roads were probably the most harrowing of the entire trip. Gorgeous, but deadly. At one point the road zips along for about a mile along a summit ridge, poised precariously between Cascade Lake on the left, and Emerald Bay on the right. The road at that point is a very narrow two-lane job with no room for guard rails, let alone shoulders. The drop off on either side is immediate and plummeting. Dad would have met his Maker.



We proceeded wistfully through the slaloms of the mountain hugging blacktop until we got to Vikingsholm at the southwestern tip of Emerald Bay, where we parked and piled out. The overlook afforded great vistas of the mountains we'd just negotiated, as well as multicolored Emerald Bay, and out beyond the narrow neck that almost make the bay its own lake, the huge expanse of Lake Tahoe proper. Already tired from hiking, skiing and booty-sliding (as the case may be), we didn't stay too long - just long enough for another chance for the kids to drown themselves in snow and make ruin of yet another fresh outfit. On the return home, just as we got to that angst-inspiring bridge between Emerald Bay and Cascade Lake we were nearly blown off the meager road by a half-dozen rangers in SUVs, barrelling over the ridge full-speed with all lights flaring. I'm not sure where they were headed, but for the next half hour as we followed the windy road back to South Tahoe we must have passed another half dozen SUVs all urgently whipping past us.













Back at Harrahs we found a Grampy more inclined to leave his financial stratagems to develop on their own overnight. He joined the troops in the minivan and endured the drive back up the mountain to the condo - a drive that now seemed quite placid to the rest of us. A mellow evening of leftovers and cards followed. Stacy, evidently sucking all the good luck out of the mountain air (much to my Dad's chagrin), made off with another Progressive Rum win.