Eleven Hours Around the Lake

Thot it might be nice to include a map of Lake Tahoe in this post. Today we travelled for 11 hours around the lake. It was a grand adventure of seeing parts of Lake Tahoe we had never seen before. We left Zephyr Cove around 9 AM heading South around the bottom of the lake. As you can see Nevada and California each share half of the lake. We will leave Nevada today, enter California and then swing around the top of the lake back in to Nevada for just a bit. Leaving we made a quick stop into Safeway for groceries, fuel and to find a Post Office to mail a postcard puzzle to the little boys and a birthday card to Brandon boy.

Our first official touring stop was at the Tallac Historical Site. I can't get over the amazing pine trees here. They tower above us and there is nothing quite like the smell of a pine forest - it is delightful!

We took this fun little path to the Tallac information center for trail maps and so the big guy could read signs.

This was a great pine cone display there. It is very interesting to distinguish the cones different trees produce. The ground is completely covered with pine cones. I really felt compelled to hoard some in the bbow, but in a moment of unusual self control I didn't take ANY! Gary however did put one in which we later gave to Kay.

These amazing fallen white trees were littered along our walk. They were quite intricate and interesting to me.

Ok, and there are stellar blue jays everywhere...and I love them. It was a game to try and get a close-up photo of them. After several fails this was actually quite a good shot.

In the 1870's this area around Tahoe was the playground of the rich and famous from San Fransisco. There were resorts, casinos and private homes built here. Three homes - the Pope, Baldwin and Valhalla estates are still there and open to the public.

This is the most historically preserved one and we enjoyed walking thru it.

Really loved this old piano, and wished to play it actually.

The kitchen was a lot of fun. it was set up to look as if someone was canning.

This amazing wooden refrigerator was actually working and you could get bottled water out of it.

Utility room

These quiet and pleasant paths took you from building to building
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And there were also some cool vehicles outside.

Not gonna lie....I love this pic of a jay among the pine needles. How cool is that!

Continuing on around the lake this is on Hwy 89 heading towards Emerald Bay - a favorite spot of ours. The road gets pretty crazy around here and the drop off to the lake instant - quite an interesting drive in the bbow.

At one point you are driving along the very crest of the ridge, the sides dropping on both sides of you. Intensely crazy! Hard to get a real good photo of this experience, but this is the best one I got.

And this is beautiful Emerald Bay and Fannette Island with the Zepher Cove Tahoe Queen, an authentic Mississippi paddlewheeler, giving a lake tour. We took that tour many years ago with our three oldest and it was an amazing way to see the lake and hear the history at the same time.

At the far end of the cove is the Vikingsholm house built by Mrs. Lorna Josephine Knight in 1928 and is considered to be one of the finest examples of Scandinavian architecture in the U.S. Before building Mrs. Knight toured Scandinavia with her team of architect's.

And on the peak of her little island she built a unique little tea house where she would take friends over by boat for afternoon tea. On a random but interesting note, While Mrs. Knight is primarily known for building Vikingsholm, she and her husband were also primary financial backers of Charles Lindberg's non-stop solo flight across the Atlantic in 1927.

This overlook has always been a favorite stop for us every time we've been to Emerald Bay. You can see it all from here...and have a great time scaling rocks too.

The big guy got some new amazing hiking shoes at the beginning of our trip and this was his first real moment to see how they would do. They were awesome!

It's hard to capture the magnitude of this waterfall. The snow melt made it pretty spectacular today...and it sounded wonderful too!

The big guy with his amazing Honcoop determination found a parking space in this impossibly small parking lot. i was under the table as he was backing and maneuvering around other vehicles. Aughhhhh!

Leaving the outlook heading North up the West side of Lake Tahoe was a new adventure of previously untraveled road for us, and we enjoyed it so much! Meeks Bay, Tahoma, Homewood and Sunnyside were all new to us and part of our grand adventure around the lake today.

This is the Truckee Dam in Tahoe City - a great place to stretch your legs, read signs (if you're the big guy) feed monster trout and greedy ducks white bread, and find great ice cream.

Oh my word, when I spotted The Dam Cafe across the street I insisted the big guy risk life and limb crossing four lanes of traffic so I could get a picture of him under the sign. He got me back by insisting I too cross the busy street and enjoy some ice cream with him there. My kids will all "get" this!

A storm was moving into the area that day and as we continued our drive across the top of Tahoe back in to Nevada we watched the waves build on the lake. Another stop near Sand Harbor State Park let us enjoy another jaunt on the rocks near the water.

The wind and the waves gave an amazing wild sensation.

And there were all these fun little paths to wander on and explore.

We said good-bye to Lake Tahoe and headed back around the top of the lake on hwy 267 to spend the nite in Truckee. Before hitting the resort we drove thru town several different ways enjoying the old buildings and imagining the town this once was.

This is the Truckee Hotel in downtown. It was built in 1868 and still is a working bed and breakfast. Truckee was known as a rough and tough gambling town in those days, and this building likely saw a lot of that...but will never tell.

We were barely set up in our campsite when it began to rain...and hard!