A GORGEOUS DAY AT TAHOE

Everybody has been to Lake Tahoe. If you don’t believe me just visit sometime and you’ll meet everybody on the roads, in the shops and in line for the “facilities”. And don’t forget to look both ways when you cross a bike path. If you don’t there’s a good chance you’ll be wearing tubular antlers the rest of your life. With that vision in mind, we were off at an ungodly hour bristling with enthusiasm. No, wait, we didn’t actually start bristling until after visiting Starbucks…and then we were off.

We headed up Mt. Rose highway to Tahoe and worked our way around the lake in a clockwise direction, starting in Incline Village and traveled south to South Shore and then north around the west side of the lake. Along the way we stopped (and cached) at Cave Rock, Zephyr Cove and an old cemetery in South Shore. Another cache took us to Truckee Marsh, a beautiful meadow created by the confluence of the Upper Truckee River and Trout Creek. To distract the attention of the nearby homeowners Larry took pictures of the ladies while Mike grabbed the cache.

As we continued around the Lake we stopped for a cache and a coke at Camp Richardson, a resort built in the 1920’s. Up the road a short way we stopped at the Tallac Historic Site. In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, three wealthy families built their homes here. The Baldwin, Pope and Heller Estates are interconnected by walking paths which wander through one of the largest groves of old-growth trees in Lake Tahoe. The Baldwin Estate, built in 1921, is now a museum with exhibits and educational programs. The Pope Estate, built in 1894, is the interpretative center for the site. The Heller Estate, otherwise know as Valhalla, is now a theater. There are a number of caches in and around the area and it would be easy to spend an entire day here. While we were there we ran into the “hawaiilovers”, a very nice family from Fresno. We walked from the parking lot to the area of the cache and while the adults were still talking one of the younger boys found the cache. It makes you wonder where you can rent small children for your next geocaching outing.

Twice we stopped near Emerald Bay and hiked short distances to caches and incredibly gorgeous views of the bay and Lake Tahoe. We stopped for lunch at Emerald Bay…well actually in a parking lot that charged $6/car. The place was packed with people from all over the world if the languages they spoke were any indication. And it’s no wonder so many people were here. The views of Emerald bay, Fannette Island and Eagle Falls were incredible. Down below the parking lot on the shore of Emerald Bay is Vikingsholm, another example of what people with way too much money will build. In 1928, Lora Josephine Knight bought Emerald Bay and Fannette Island and built a castle that is considered to be one of the finest examples of Scandinavian architecture existing in the United States.

After lunch we headed north around the lake to Kings Beach, then turned onto 267 and headed to Truckee. Along the way we, of course, picked up some more caches. In Truckee we said our goodbyes to Linda and Larry. They went their way and we headed back to Reno but not before we found just one more.