We recently took a quick trip to Lake Tahoe to cross another item off our bucket list. We were there the week before Memorial Day and it was wonderful. It was like a ghost town with hardly any other visitors. The ski lifts were in shut down mode and everyone was gearing up for summer. In Lake Tahoe, summer activities include river rafting, fishing, hiking, etc. However, this Spring has been really interesting in California. We usually don’t have rain past the month of February. When we get rain, it usually means Lake Tahoe gets snow. They had just had snow the week before and it snowed on our drive up. It was beautiful. This week, we heard they received so much snow at Squaw Valley which is down the road from the lodge where we stayed, that they opened the ski lifts. They were snow skiing on Memorial Day which is really unusual!
We spent most of our days exploring the lake by car & walking around the various towns. As I mentioned earlier, most of the activities were closed but I’m not sure we would have been able to do any of them anyway. As Barry said, “What do you do in Tahoe with a pregnant wife and your dog?” Yes, we brought Jovi on our little excursion! It was fun to have him along.
One night, we rode into Nevada and really enjoyed that drive. It’s simply beautiful and a part of the country I’m not sure we’ll ever see again. Barry wanted to see the “lights of Reno” but I really enjoyed the drive.
We stayed at a great lodge right on the Truckee River. Our balcony was right off the river and we enjoyed listening to the water. The owners of the lodge reminded us “city folks” that bears and raccoons were in the area so to keep Jovi close by. We also had to make sure we didn’t leave food in our car because they would come after it. They gave us this friendly reminder—
I actually did see a small bear jumping over the hill outside our room one night when I was returning. And where there’s a little bear, there’s a mama bear so I didn’t stick around very long!
Random fact, just down the road you’ll see the Olympic torch. Why? Well, the 1960 Winter Olympics were held at Squaw Valley. It was cool to read about the history of the event and see another olympic torch (besides the one in Atlanta!)
The countdown is on. As of today, I only have 24 days left in our apartment. It’s exciting but overwhelming to think about all the people we want to visit with, one last time!
That sounds like so much fun… a nice quiet peaceful, adult-only (well, and a dog) vacation. I was just thinking today how nice it would be to just get away and be able to sit and drink some good coffee (without rushing), see some snow, and just sight see and relax. It sounds like you guys had a great time.