The Good, the Bad, and the Lovely

We're back!


Tahoe was fantastic... well, most of it, anyway. The kids had a great time with different cousins at different beaches, and Dave and I did this thing we never do: relax.

Here we are at Sugar Pine Point State Park. Ahhh...

I'm not sure how many more years of jumping off the rocks at DL Bliss Dave and I have, but we managed to do it this time!

Yep, there's nothing to take one's mind of a revision like a plunge into 58 degree water.

The kids caught crawdads, counted pine cones, dug in the sand, and swam.

Now. The not-so-good? The FOOD! Terrible eats, and even worse service.

We experienced everything from menus thrown at us to forgotten toast to a long black hair in our steamed clams.

What the heck?

At El Toro Bravo in Truckee our last night, though, things finally turned around. Thank God. And Poppa.

Next year: same people, same place. We'll just bring our own food.

Off to Tahoe

School's out, the bags are packed, and we're off to Tahoe for a week!

As a kid, I spent all my summers in the Blue World, have seen its people turn from flocks of

feather-ed haired skiiers to second-homed San Jose tekkies.

Two years ago, a chunk of the south part burned. My husband and I visited that area, and I wrote a newspaper article about it.

Even with its cultural and biological changes, the Lake itself is still as lovely as ever.

Our favorite places: jumping off the granite at DL Bliss State Park, combing the white beach at Sand Harbor, and hiking to the Crown Jewel--Emerald Bay. Two other nearby lakes we like visiting are Angora and Donner.

We hike, bike, boat, and swim. We eat Lakehouse pizza in Tahoe City, and gather up groceries at Obexer's Market. Every so often, we'll go to Circus Circus in Reno for monorail rides and buffet cream puffs. We check out all the fire stations.

Sometimes we fish, but we never shop. Or see Shakespeare.

There are too many other fun things to do.

Clean air, crawdads, pine trees, and the Queen Mary: Tahoe is more than vacation for us. It's a tradition.