Lake Tahoe 2007
September 7 - September 14
September 8 2007 – September 14 2007
FFriday, September 7, 2007
This was our travel day. We should have known that it was going to be a slow day, when it took us 30 mins to get to Gonnella and it wasn't raining and there weren't any accidents! We did however get to the airport and through security with about 90 mins to spare. We boarded the plane about 9:40 and then sat and sat and sat some more. There was apparently something wrong with the liner on the right engine and they (american airlines) weren't sure if they could fix it. Well, around 11:30 they declared it fixed and we finally got on the way. The worst part of just sitting there wasn't even the super packed plane, since they had the air on so it wasn't an uncomfortable temperature, but they had this god-awful muzak piped through. Once in a great while they'd get a decent song, but man, on a whole, was it really annoying.
When we finally landed (safely) in Reno, we got out bags and met up with Mark's parents and headed towards Lake Tahoe. We decided to stop in Carson City for linner (it was almost 3pm by this time so, it was late for lunch, but early for dinner). We tried a few different restaurants, but many of them (at least in Carson City) closed between Lunch and Dinner. We finally found an Italian place that was open. B'speghetti's (318 North Carson Street. Carson City, NV 775-887-8879). It was actually pretty good. I had potato gnocchi with pesto sauce, Mark had the eggplant parmesan platter, Vince had the penne arrabiata, Bev had the penne calabresi. We all enjoyed our meals. They were so filling that we wound up not eating dinner, just snacked on chips and salsa.
Saturday, September 08, 2007
Woke up early, but we were a little slow in getting out. We were planning to go to a different hike, but in order to go to the El Dorado county wineries, we decided to just do the hike out the door. Oh boy, was the beginning steep. Sue couldn't get her breathe, actually felt lightheaded and naseous, but once it leveled off she was fine. The picture doesn't really do the steepness justice, but this was the top of the first hill.
After the hike, we showered and got ready to enjoy our day. Bev had a few "issues", she couldn't open the bathroom door, from the inside. Apparently it was a pocket door that got pushed off its tracks. We're not sure how that happened (wink, wink).
After everything was sorted, we finally made it down to the wineries. We discovered on the way to wine country that Mark is a dual personality superhero. Not only is he, "Map Man", but he's also "Sign Sayer". It was his responsibility to not only read the maps and give directions, but to read the signs and let us know where to turn. I don't know where we would be without him.
Upon arriving in wine country, with of course the help of Map Man and Sign Sayer, we went to Miraflores, Holly's Hill, Narrow Gate, Crystal Basin and Jodar. Miraflores was our favorite, then Narrow Gate. Holly's Hill wasn't bad, but we didn’t buy any. At Crystal Basin, we were able to do some barrel tasting. Something Mark and I had never done. We really were impressed by their Cabernet Franc barrel wine and considered buying some futures, but decided to wait.
We had purchased a deli sandwich after Miraflores and ate outside Narrow Gate with a bottle of their Dunamis. Yummy. Below is a picture of the picnic tables where we ate.
We ate a late lunch, so decide to just have cheese, crackers and some more wine (go figure!)
Sunday, September 9, 2007
It was a Pajama day. Bev asked Vince to bring her a pajama for breakfast. She meant banana, but we're just guessing she was still tired.
Once we finally got ready we decided to do the Lake Winnemucca Loop Trail. The hike started out about 8200' and climbed to about 9400'. It was a pretty steady climb at the beginning, with the first view of Winnemucca Lake. Very pretty and serene. Then there was another climb up to Round Top Lake. Nowhere near as pretty as Lake Winnemucca, but still serene with some nice views of the surrounding peaks.
Then we started decent. What an interesting trip. We ran into a few fellow hikers who had a couple of dogs with them. Maddox (some type of bulldog) took a "liking" to Mark and peed on his shoe.! Luckily most of it missed, but at least Mark's boots are waterproof, for the few drops that made it The way down was pretty steap and we were trying to hurry back to watch the Bears vs San Diego game. We made it home with 10 minutes to spare, but unfortunately, the game wasn't shown in this area. We got to see the Lions play the Raiders (oh boy!). So we were relegated to watching the game via the internet. We made chili for the game and had a few beers, but nothing seemed to help, since the Bears defense was too tired to hold off San Diego's offense in the end What's worse is the Bears had 5 turnovers during the game, no wonder they lost But it was only 14-3. Too bad we don't have an offense.
Since we had another late lunch we decided to just finish off the cheese, sausage and crackers for dinner and have a vertical of the Miraflores Zinfandels. Yummy!
Monday, September 10, 2007
Today we decided to go for a level hike at a lower altitude. We did about 8.5 miles in a pretty even terraine. We did the Lily Pond hike Nothing very exciting, nothing too pretty. It was a little hard to find the trail head and we did a lot of wrong turns, but we finally made it. The problem was it was a pretty non descript hike. Not much to even take pictures of (since Art wasn't there). The hike was mostly in the shade, with a few sunny spots, though a lot of forested areas. Once we finally got to Lily Pond it was pretty disappointing. Although the "pond" was full of lilies, because it's been so dry it was really more like a marsh than a pond. We stopped and had lunch then trekked back. We took a different route, but still wasn't very exciting, although we were all ready to stop hiking, it really seemed like it took forever to get to the parking lot. At last the parking lot showed up and we found our car and headed home.
We went out for an early dinner at The Cantina (765 Emerald Bay Road , South Lake Tahoe, CA 530-544-1233) – since we were all starving. Pretty good mexican food, decent margaritas (except the house happy hour offerings). Sue had El Papagayo Burrito and Mark had the special (Tilapia Enchiladas), Bev had the Chile Verde and Vince had the Smoked Chicken Mole Enchiladas. Everyone was happy with their meals. We were starving when we got there and ordered way too much. Had chips and salsa, an appetizer (southwestern potato skins) and Mark and Vince had the southwest black bean soup. The soup was ok, but tasted too much of chili powder and was too thin for Sue's taste.). We wound up with lots of leftovers, so we'll probably be getting another meal out of the leftovers.
Then we went home to watch football. Tomorrow is another day.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Today was our day to relax in preparation for the Lake Aloha hike. We decided to go into town and do some gambling and then walk down to The Brewery for lunch. None of us really did any good gambling, we all lost our alloted spending money, except for Mark who came home with $40. The walk to The Brewery was a nice one, not that the scenery was all that special, but it was a little over a mile and a good bit of exercise.
For dinner that night we went to Tep's Villa Roma for dinner. We had a decent Amador County Zinfandel with dinner. Beverly had the Lasagne, Vince had the Osso Bucco, Sue had the chicken basil pasta special and Mark had the Salmon stuffed with crab. We all like our meal, except for Mark. All meals come with salad and soup bar. Good value, but nothing fancy.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Lake Aloha Day! We left the house around 8am, we were almost all the way to the trail head when we hit a snag. The road was closed due to a house being constructed. The road was supposed to reopen at 9:00am, but it was almost 10:10 before we got going again. Then we got hit by another road block and had to wait maybe about 10 more minutes for the crane to move out of the roadway, before we could finally continue down the road to the trailhead.
We finally got on the trail a little after 10:30am, about an hour and a half later than we anticipated. We really weren't sure if we were going to be able to go all the way to Lake Aloha and return before it was dark. We decided to go to Susie Lake which is on the way to Lake Aloha and see what time we got there. Those first four miles were really tough. Lots of uphill and lots of rocks. That really was the worst part of the hike – all those damn rocks. It really made the footing tough. But we made it to Susie Lake in about 2 and a half hours and stopped for lunch. It was much bigger and prettier than I thought it would be. After a short rest for lunch we decided to go to Heather Lake, since it wasn't that much further. Heather Lake was also pretty, and the trail around it a little precarious, with a narrow rocky path close to a small drop off into the lake. As we were hiking around, we met a guy fishing we told us that Lake Aloha was just beyond the ridge under the snow banks. We figured we'd made it this far, we might as well go the whole way. It was a little rough going as there were still a lot of rocks and some more uphill, although only about 150 feet. Finally as we got to the top of the ridge, there it was! Lake Aloha. Total hiking time out to Lake Aloha was about 3 and a half hours. We stayed there about 15 mins before heading back.
The best part about the way back is that it was mostly downhill, but because of the rocks and some steep parts we couldn't go really fast. Well, that and the fact that we were all starting to get tired and our feet were really starting to hurt from all those damn rocks! The way back seemed long, we kept waiting to run into various trail markers and they seemed like they were moved, since the path just kept going and going. Finally the trail evened out a little and we finally started coming to the few houses that you see along the beginning of the route. Hallajuiah! The trail was nearing an end. But that last mile seemed to go on and on and on. Finally we got to the trail head and then the car. It only took around 7 hours. Our feet were killing us and we were filthy from the dust along the trail. But the main thing is we made it.
From what Mark and I can remember, this route to Lake Aloha is harder and less scenic than the Echo Lake route. This route has less lakes to view, more rocks and more elevation gain (about 1900'). If (and probably when) we do Lake Aloha again, we will do the Echo Lakes route.
We got back to the condo around 7pm, showered and had leftover Mexican food. Watched a little tv before we all crashed and fell asleep.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Amazingly enough none of us are all that sore today. I remember being much sorer after the first hike to Lake Aloha 9 years ago. I wouldn't say any of us are ready to do it again today, but we're all moving okay, so that's a good sign.
Off to the Reno Air Races. (www.airrace.org) This was a new experience for Mark and me. It was very loud and there were many different types of planes there. We were able to walk around a bunch of planes, including an air force refueling plane and cargo plane, as well as some vintage aircraft. After walking around a bit we grabbed some lunch (nothing special that took forever – mostly because I think they forgot me). Then we sat in the grandstands to watch some of the races. The day was really, really nice. The sun was hot, but there was a nice cool breeze so that it was extremely pleasant. The races themselves were just preliminaries, so it wasn't anything too exciting. Generally whoever was out in front stayed in front. In between races though they had some stunt planes and a race between a car and a plane, which were different to see (of course the plane won).
About 2:45pm, we were watching the jets race and the unthinkable happened, a fatal crash. Investigations were still underway, but initial reports are that the jet flown by Brad Morehouse got caught in the wake of another jet and crashed. It all happened so quickly, but I guess when jets can reach speeds over 500 mph, that's to be expected. It was very surreal. Bev told me to look at that guy, because he was so low to the ground and I looked just in time to see him hit the ground. There was an explosion and you could see parts of the plane just breaking up all over the runway. It's hard to believe that it was real, that there was a person in there and that person had just perished. It was very sad. We were planning on leaving after that race anyway, so once that happened, we left immediately. Vince knew that the rest of that race would be cancelled. When we got home, we found out that racing was suspended for the whole day. Mr. Morehouse was the 17th pilot in the 44 year history of the Reno Air Races to lose his life . Our condolences go out to his family. (for news story go to: http://www.kesq.com/Global/story.asp?S=7072930&nav=9qrx)
It was a somber ride home, but fortunately for us, life goes on. We decided to go out to dinner at the Beacon Restaurant down on the waterfront. They have a limited menu, with elevated prices, but a great view. Vince and Bev had the Halibut, Mark had the Seared Scallops and I had the Honey Jalapeno Salmon. Portions were large and tasty. We all enjoyed our meal. We complimented our meals with a bottle of 2005 Lake Sonoma Chardonnay. It had a touch a fruit on the nose, but overall, not a bad wine. One thing to note they have a corkage fee of $15, although the wine prices weren't outrageous, the selection is very limited. (http://www.camprichardson.com/resort/beacon.cfm)
Friday, September 14, 2007
Time to go home. With this vacation, we are all ready to go home, even though we had a good time.We were delayed 45 minutes because of winds in Chicago, but otherwise it was a relatively quick and uneventful flight . Our luggage came out in good order, and we got home around 9pm. (after picking up pizza for dinner).
There ends our vacation, until either January or we win lotto, whichever comes first.