Hanging with the Donner Party

Saturday was the day we went from Lake Tahoe to Reno.  We woke up that morning in our cabin, but we had to be out by 11:00.  I knew Robyn would want to sleep in as long as possible, so I ate breakfast and had a leisurely morning reading and relaxing.

When she finally woke up we packed up our things and headed out.  We went out for brunch (lunch for me, breakfast for Robyn) at the Log Cabin Cafe in King's Beach.  It had been featured on several food shows and was supposed to be the best breakfast around.  It certainly didn't disappoint.

I had a breakfast burrito because Robyn's burrito had looked so good at McAdoo's

Robyn wanted a croissant, eggs and sausage.  She found a plate that had all her wildest dreams.

My burrito was super good, but I should have asked for it without jalapenos.  I bit into one and was feeling it for a minute.  Other than that, it was fabulous.

It was a long wait, so we didn't actually start breakfast until around noon.  So when we were done we were into the afternoon.

Afterward, we drove up to Donner Memorial State Park.  There is a museum there as well as some hiking trails.  The museum had some history about the area, about emigrants travelling to the trail and specifically about the Donner Party.

The entrance to the museum

I was excited about the golden spike and started singing the song we learned in Elementary School about Promontory Point.  Robyn was less excited about me singing in a public place.

I really wanted a picture in front of the covered wagon.  This was the best I could get.  Robyn was so embarrassed that I wanted a picture that she wouldn't come around to the front of it, nor would she give me more than 5 seconds.

Robyn was also embarrassed that I wanted a picture of her by the bear.  She basically hates memories.

 After the museum we did a short hike along a walking trail.  When I planned the trip, my plan was to walk to Donner Lake. (4 miles round trip) but we were so beat from the 10.5 miles of walking the day before, we just did this short nature walk.

Robyn is cute in nature.

This monument was in honor of the Donner Party.  It is 22 feet tall, to show how deep the snow was when they were there.

The plaque on the memorial: "Virile to risk and find; kindly withal and a ready help, facing the brunt of fate, indomitable, unafraid."

It was crazy to think what they suffered through.  I can't imagine trying to survive a winter in these high mountains with 22 feet of snow falling on top of me.

After the memorial we headed into Reno.  We were staying at the La Quinta Inn in Reno and so we went to check in to our hotel.  I've always had great experiences with La Quinta, so when I was booking this trip I just booked the Reno La Quinta when I found they had one.  It turns out La Quinta has varying levels of quality.  This certainly wasn't a bad hotel, but it wasn't up to the normal level of quality we're used to.  It was in a little bit ghetto part of town and it had more of a Motel 6 feel to it.  Nonetheless, we got checked in, we changed our clothes and headed over to the Reno temple.  (The reason we were staying in Reno was for 2 reasons, the first was that our cabin wasn't available Saturday night, but the second was that we really wanted to see the Reno temple.)

We headed over to the temple and it was beautiful.  It sits atop a hill framed by some beautiful mountains (or really big hills) as you are driving up.  I put a few pictures on my temple blog.

Finally, after the temple, we came back to our hotel and just wanted to order a pizza and relax.  It turns out that ordering a pizza in Reno, Nevada is an impossible task.  No one wants to deliver to La Quinta.  Apparently, that part of town is so ghetto that not even pizza can enter.  I picture Gandalf standing somewhere on I-580 saying, "Pizza shall not pass."

Finally, I just ordered a pizza and drove the 5 miles to pick it up.  That wasn't the easiest task either because apparently my GPS hates pizza.  I did eventually find the pizza place and returned to the hotel alive.  When I brought Robyn the pizza  I got to feel like a true hunter/gatherer bringing back the spoils of my hunt.

Then, like a true warrior, I feasted on my pizza and went to sleep.

Thus ends my blogging about our anniversary trip.  There was one more day, but it consisted of driving from Reno, Nevada to Lehi, Utah.  We did the normal road trip things: singing songs, talking, sitting in silence when we run out of songs and things to say.  So there you have it.

Adventures in Lake Tahoe

I wrote about road tripping to Lake Tahoe.  Now it's time to find out what we did once we got there.

Friday was our big adventure day.  But before the adventure there was some important sleeping time.  I let Robyn sleep in as late as she wanted.  I woke up early and had a small breakfast.  It actually got pretty cold in the morning and I started to fill a little chilled.  (This is a new thing that happens to me now.  It turns out losing 60 pounds makes you lose some insulation.)

I decided to go outside and soak in the hot tub by myself.  That was my primary activity all morning long.

I have to say, enjoying the quiet morning with the chirping birds, the hot tub, the brisk air and the beautiful view was the greatest thing ever.  The only thing that would have made it better was if Robyn joined me.  I kept hoping she would wake up and come out, but she was enjoying her sleeping, so I'm glad she got to do what she wanted to do.  At least I had my underwater camera with me to keep me entertained.

This is what it looked like in the hot tub

This is what the hot tub saw when it looked at me.

When I was done hot tubbing I went and took a shower and my loud bumbling throughout the cabin eventually woke Robyn up.  That meant it was time for our adventure to begin.

I had selected a couple hikes that I thought would be fun.  The first was the Rubicon trail beginning in DL Bliss state park.  My good friend, the internet, said that it had some of the most beautiful views of Lake Tahoe.  It's a trail that follows the shoreline, sometimes climbing up 3 or 400 feet above the water to give views looking down, other times going all the way down to the beach.  I figured it would be a good workout going up and down, but also a good experience in nature seeing lots of beauty.

I had planned to walk a good 2 miles of it (4 miles round trip.)  Unfortunately, the state of California had other plans.  When we got to the park we found this.

The park was closed.  It didn't even have anything to do with government shutdown.  It was just closed for the season.

That sign was accompanied by a barricade.  There was no way our car was getting through.  But we didn't let that stop us from our adventure.  We just started hiking earlier than we thought.

Beyond the barricade is there a world you long to see?

The one advantage to the closed park was that we had the whole place to ourselves.  We ran into a total of maybe 10 people the whole day.  This road beyond the barricade was 2 miles from the trail head.  Round trip that turned our 4 mile hike into 8 miles.  But it was sure beautiful.

There were lots of Lake views.

The deep blue of the water was amazing.

I never got tired of the beautiful trees and water.

Of course, 8 miles is a lot of walking.

We walked through Mordor.

We found the big trees of Endor.

We even made it to the beach.

The water was so beautiful.  Robyn said it just made her want to swim in it.  I told her that was not recommended, since the water is about 40 degrees.  She said she at least needed to touch it.  Usually I'm the one that needs to touch things, so I certainly didn't object.

After our 8 mile hike, we discussed if we wanted to do the second hike I had planned.  Since we had already gone 8 miles, which was double what we had planned, we were feeling a little tired.  But we didn't want to miss out, so we went to our second destination.

I had heard (again from my friend, the internet) that there were beautiful views on the trail to Cascade Falls.

Robyn is tired, and concerned that we are in the land of desolation.

 The good news is that we never saw the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet.

However, it definitely was not the super simple hike we had planned on.  First, this hike had the same problem our first hike had.  The park was closed, which meant we couldn't park at the trail head.  It was supposed to be a 2 mile hike, but there was an extra quarter mile added each way by walking from outside the park.  Plus, the internet said it was only a 150 foot climb.  The elevation change was 150 feet, but the trail went down and up at least 3 times, so the climb was more like 450 feet.  Normally, that amount of climb would not be a big deal, but our total walking that day was now amounting to 10.5 miles.  We were some tuckered out little tikes.

Nevertheless, the views were still very pretty.  The trail winds around Cascade Lake.

This is a view of Cascade Lake along the trail.

Also the timing of the hike allowed us to see the views across Lake Tahoe as the sun was setting.  We had Cascade Lake in the foreground and Lake Tahoe further away.

The camera didn't fully capture it, but the purple mountains were beautiful.

Later we got to watch the moon rise.

After passing the lake, the trail goes into a rocky area right before getting to the falls.  We were super tired and almost ready to turn around when we heard running water.  We continued to where we were only 100 feet away when what to my wondering eyes would appear but a naked guy.  Like totally nude, wearing nothing.  He and his girlfriend (or wife, or acquaintance, I'm not really sure, I didn't interview them) had apparently been skinny dipping.  I let Robyn know that we should probably sit down and wait a few minutes on the other side of the hill.  But we made sure to make plenty of loud noise during our waiting period.

Naked people are just like other wildlife that you encounter in nature.  You want to make plenty of noise so that they are aware you're there and you don't startle them.

Eventually, the naked team emerged from their quarantined area fully clothed.  The guy gave me a look that said, "I'm pretty sure you saw me naked and I appreciate that you aren't drawing attention to that fact."  I gave him a look that said, "Yes, I did and I'm sure glad that's over."

After their exit we climbed down into the "falls".   The waterfall was a bit anticlimactic.  It was mostly a stream that tumbles over a few rocks.  Robyn assured me that if it were early spring there would be lots of water.  I imagine in April or May it looks awesome.  In October it looks like this.  But, I guess in October visitors are infrequent enough that you can skinny dip if you feel inclined.

Doesn't it make you want to take your clothes off?  Me neither.

By the time we got back to the car, it was getting dark outside.  We had had more adventure than 2 old people like us are used to.  We went out to dinner at an italian restaurant called Scusa, in South Lake Tahoe. Foursquare told us to try the lobster ravioli.  Lobster Ravioli!  It was amazing.

That night the hot tub was my friend.  My legs and back were sore after a lot of hiking.  My old body is not used to that level of adventuring.

Are old people allowed to hike 10.5 miles in one day?  I'm not sure we should be.

A Road Trip and a Candied Me

I wrote last week about how Robyn surprised me for our anniversary.  I also promised you that I would tell you how I surprised Robyn in turn.  Well, the time has come for all to be revealed.

Every year in October, Utah has a few days where they give teachers (and students) time off for Fall break.  We were married the week before this break so that Robyn (being a teacher) would have the time off for us to take a honeymoon.  So, it works out for us to take a trip every year the week after our anniversary.  This year, I surprised Robyn with a trip to Lake Tahoe.

First, I should tell you there were things she knew about the surprise.  She knew I was taking her on a road trip.  She knew it was 8ish hours away.  She knew we were going to visit a temple.  She knew we would be doing some hiking.  (It's clear that I'm not that good at keeping secrets.  Those are all the things that I had leaked in the preceding months.)

We began our road trip on Wednesday night.  I worked a full day on Wednesday, and we were going to make the first half of our road trip that night.  As we were driving, I told her I wanted to hear guesses about our destination.  Before she would say anything, she waited a few minutes to see which direction we were going.  As we started going north on I-15 she said her guesses were Montana and Lake Tahoe.

She really wanted it to be Lake Tahoe, but she was trying to not make me feel bad if it was Montana.  I told her we were on our way to Lake Tahoe.  She was very happy.

We had gotten off pretty close to on time.  Unfortunately, after driving about 20 minutes I realized I had forgotten her present.  So we had to turn around.

On the second try, we were 40 minutes later than planned.  But I had her present in tow.

Our stop off was in Elko, Nevada.  There's not much there, which is why I had brought her a present.  I figured that could make an unexciting evening a little exciting.

Her present was a bunch of M&Ms with our faces on them.  I've always wanted my face on an M&M, so it was just as much a present for me.  But it was a fun surprise for her as well.

Robyn showing off her new present.

The four types of deliciousness.

A bowl full of us.

Robyn is happy about her surprise.

If you want to see her open it, just watch this handy dandy video.

The next morning, I had found a fun place online to go to breakfast.  The deliciousness was overwhelming.  Normally I would just say that there was bacon involved, and that would be enough said.  But the pumpkin pancakes were amazing, and the hot chocolate overwhelmed me with joy.

This is what Robyn looked like, drinking my hot chocolate.

After an amazing breakfast, we continued our road trip.  That afternoon we made it to King's Beach, California.  We were staying in a super cute little cabin with a beautiful view of Lake Tahoe from the back porch.

Here are some views of the place.

This was our first view, what it looked like when we got out of the car.

A few feet closer.

Boulderdash: that's what the kids are calling the cabin we stayed at.

The front porch.  Totem pole included at no extra charge.

The back porch with the hot tub.

The view from the back porch/hot tub.

After getting settled, we went grocery shopping and had dinner at the cabin.  Then we did a short hike down to the lake.

Robyn is always cute.  Her time at Lake Tahoe is no exception.

Robyn enjoying the view.

The sun beginning to set over the lake.

Some silhouette views of the sunset.

Once the road trip part of the trip was over, the adventure was able to begin the next morning.  But, I'm tired, so I'll tell you more about that later.