I try to take at least one vacation a year. Sometimes that means calling in sick Monday morning to score a three-day weekend, but this year I took an entire week off from work to accompany my parents on an 1100-mile excursion.
We left our humble abode about 8 p.m. Aug. 9 and drove straight through to Bishop, which isn’t a great daytime stop during the summer. We arrived after dark – heck, we left town after dark – and pulled into a parking lot a little after 2 in the morning. We were tired. How were we to know you can’t park just anywhere?
We ate breakfast at a quaint (but jumping) bakery called Schatts and hit the road. It took us all day to get to Lake Tahoe, but that first glimpse of the lake from Hwy 50 makes the journey well worth it. We rambled down the mountain, dropped the boat in the water and proceeded to our campsite.
The campground hosts, who happen to live next door to our chosen spot (yes, there are people who actually live in these campgrounds for several months at a time), told us about Red and Yogi, two bears that frequent the campground. It seems Red had visited our site just that morning. Alas, we would not see Red. Nor Yogi. Nor any of their brethren. Mid-week I considered tying the brat next door to the table and leaving him overnight. Maybe that would bring us some bears?
Tahoe is pretty. So many stars. We stayed up to watch the Perseod meteor shower, which was sorta neat, although there weren’t very many shooting stars, and we only had patches of clear sky what with all the trees. The water was too cold to get in on purpose, so we didn’t ski. But we did toot around the lake and marvel at the clarity and depth of the water. It’s not unusual to look straight through 20 feet of water and clearly make out rocks and other stuff on the lake floor.
One day I got the bright idea to ride my bike into town, which is about two-and-a-half miles from the campsite. The terrain is relatively flat between these two points, although there are some gradual ups and downs, and the scenery is fabulous, so even though it’s been years since I’ve actually engaged in physical exercise, I figured I would be fine. An hour later I returned to camp, knees trembling and stomach churning. It seems I’m quite out of shape.
We had a visit from my friend Sekhar, the multi-talented journalist/husband/father-to-be who writes for the Sacramento Bee (but who, with any luck on my part, will soon work for something a bit closer to Orange County). We tossed the football around, and I’m pleased to know I’m not the only one who needs to get outside more! He of transportation took my mom and me to downtown South Lake Tahoe, half of which is in Nevada and sports several nifty casinos. The three of us wandered around and browsed the shops.
Later, mom, dad and I returned to downtown via the local bus system, aptly called the Nifty 50. They make rounds every hour. Well, almost every hour. Well, almost, almost every hour, on the hour. The driver was very specific about where to meet and to be there by “10 o’clock sharp” as that would be the last pickup.
We arrived at 8:45 for the 9 p.m. bus. The bus came early. At 9:20 we went back inside (we were still wearing swimsuits, thinking we’d get back before dark, and nighttime in Tahoe is chilly). I put $1 in a nickel slot. I proceeded to turn my dollar into $9.45. I was very proud. At 9:40 we went back to the bus stop so as not to miss the last trolley. By 10:30 we decided the bus wouldn’t be back at all. We hailed a taxi at one of the casinos. So you see, the Nifty 50 is well named: it only makes half its stops.
We spent the second half of our vacation at Lake Nacimiento, which reminded me very much of the Colorado River, only it was 108 instead of 120 and the water was a very comfortable 78 degrees. We water skied, kneeboarded, rode the tube and generally sped about the lake admiring all the houses and boats that are better than ours. At least, I think that’s what we were doing. I’m not sure; I dazed out under all that sun.
Although we had reservations at an actual campground with full hookups for the motorhome, a table, trees and showers, we decided it made more sense to camp down along the water in “overflow” where the slope of the shoreline made it nearly impossible to level the motorhome. Also, there were no trees to shade us; regular dust clouds stormed us; and a busted pipe somewhere up the hill made our camp the equivalent of a river. Which is better than the delta on the other side of the rig.
All in all, we had a grand time. We met up with some neighbors, who graciously lent us their Jeep so we could put our boat in the water and pull it out each day. Did I mention we sprung a leak in Tahoe? Yeah, that’s not cool. Luckily, it didn’t stop us from getting wet. I mean on the lake. And only by our own device.