2009-06 Lake Tahoe Part 1

We went to Lake Tahoe for our summer vacation this year. The lake itself straddles the
Nevada/California border. We stayed on the southeast corner of the lake up in the mountains in an area called Tahoe Village, which is near the Heavenly ski resort.

We flew into Reno, and since we couldn't get into our room until after 4PM, we went to downtown Reno for some sightseeing. As luck would have it, there was a BBQ, beer and blues festival going on this weekend. A 3 block length of street was blocked off and various stages were set up for music. Vendors were selling food, crafts and clothing. Dozens of beer vendors were selling beer, either by the glass or a 4 oz. samples. Too many vendors to sample all the various beers though, at least in the time we were going to be there.

We walked through a couple casinos, but didn't stop to make any plays. On the way back to the van, we went to the national bowling stadium, which was busy with a women’s tournament. There are 78 lanes , which seem in continuous use. Above and behind the lanes is seating for 1100 spectators.

After our quick tour of Reno, we drove about an hour south to get to the condo where we would be staying for the next week. In the winter, these are used by skiers who are skiing the nearby Heavenly ski area. The stagecoach express chairlift is only a few hundred yards away.

Sunday we went to explore Stateline, NV and South Lake Tahoe, CA. These are sister cites that straddle the state borders. There were a couple of arts and crafts shows going on this weekend, so we spent some time wondering through the rows of booths. The first was in a casino hotel parking lot, making it pretty warm to walk around. The second was in a park filled with very tall pine trees, making it much more comfortable to look around.

After the craft fairs, we went to the Round Hills Pine beach. The lake is very cold due to the mountain run off and depth. This also helps keep the lake so clear, with the ability to see down over 60 feet. The sand was hot and somewhat course to walk on,

but it felt good to cool off in the lake every 125 minutes or so, but was hard to stay in the lake for any great length of time. A couple of the casinos had cruise boats that docked here, and many boats were tied up on the anchor points out past the swimming area.

The pine trees here are huge, as are their pine cones. Ray found out early that they also have very sharp needles on them. He picked one up and as he grabbed it, felt a sharp pain in his thumb from one of the needles. Another interesting aspect of the pine trees is the pollen they are currently releasing. We had noticed yellow powder on our vehicle and then on the tables when we were eating dinner outside. We found out this was the pollen from the pine trees, and it is in the air for 4-6 weeks each year.

On Monday morning, Ray and LeAnn

took a hike up the ski run and then met up with the Rim Trail, which goes all around the lake. It is 165 miles in length. It was a lot easier to walk the trail than to go up the run since the trail has much smaller changes in elevation. We got a great view of Lake Tahoe at the site of one cache, and some good exercise getting to the top of the hill. We were feeling more acclimated to the elevation each day. We are staying at an elevation of about 7000 feet, and have about 50 stairs to climb from the parking lot to our room.

We then started our tour around the lake. By road it is about 72 miles around the lake (about the same as the 494/694 loop around Minneapolis/St. Paul), sometimes close to shore and other time well away from the shore. You also vary greatly in elevation, from almost at lake level to more than 1000 feet above the lake, so you have some great views. There are many pull-offs along the road allowing you to get some great views and not just see everything a 40mph.

We stopped at Emerald Bay and looked over the

only island in the lake, and also the Viking House. This had been a private residence originally, but was donated along with the owners land to the state of California. We had planned on going down to the Viking House, but the lot was full and we didn't have a good place to park and decided to come back at another time. We would also take a look at Eagle Falls when we come back.

We stopped at DL Bliss state park, which was just

on the other side of Emerald Bay and went swimming and relaxing on the beach for a couple of hours. From there we made our way up to Tahoe City for a late lunch and a walk around town. They have an interesting statue in their lakeside park. It is called the Big Tree and is a segment of a very large tree that originally stood in the middle of the road. When it died, the segment was turned into a large tree sculpture.

Our last stop of the day was at Sand Harbor Beach. This is in the northeast corner of the lake and has very fine sand, multiple beach areas separated by various rock outcroppings, a large boat landing, and a Shakespeare festival stage. Shakespeare’s plays are presented in July and August on the stage.

On Tuesday we headed to the Sanoma Valley region of Northern California. This is a very famous grape growing and wine producing region of the US. We had to go over the mountains on a lot of 2 lane roads with multiple

switchbacks. We saw a very large waterfall as we came around one corner. As we got closer to Sacramento, the land flattened out and we had a much better drive.

We arrived in Sanoma about noon and went to the visitor center to get some suggestions on which wineries to visit. One they recommended was the Benziger winery in the northern portion of the valley. What made this interesting was they are a biodynamic winery, which is a type of organic farming and production specific to the wine industry. They started to produce organically over 20 years ago and have continued to expand their capabilities.

We wondered around town and went into various shops that are around the perimeter of the central plaza. Many offered wine tasting from the various local vineyards. there was a very large tree in the central plaza, wider than four of us standing side by side. We also grabbed a bite to eat in a local restaurant before heading out to the winery.

Benziger produces many types of grapes, and grows varieties based on the soil and topography in various areas of the farm. They also have areas set aside for various types of plants that attract beneficial insects and birds to allow pesticide free farming.

Their grape processing occurs outside in order to save on air conditioning, and they recently built a tunnel into the side of one of their hills to store their wine in barrels at a constant, cool temperature. The tunnel goes deep into the hill and then has various fingers that extend at 90 degree angles out in each direction.

After the winery tour (and of course a taste test), we went over the hills and into Napa. Napa is a much bigger town than Sonoma. The central area was going through a lot changes with many storefronts vacant. It was after 5:00, so the stores that were around were already closed. As we were heading back to Tahoe, we decided to take the long route on the interstate to the north side of the lake before heading south hoping the trip through the mountains would be easier since it would be multi-lane interstate rather than two lane windy roads. There was some construction on the interstates that made them a little narrower than normal, but it still seemed like a better route to take.