Vacation Day 1
Thus far vacation has, as Pete Ehlke says, failed to suck.
We drove four-odd hours with the now-traditional In & Out Burger break (for the amount of shit I talk about burger meat, my cheeseburger was…shockingly delicious) and ended up in North Lake Tahoe in late afternoon. As we unpacked into the tiny rental, I was finally able to put to rest the nagging sensation that I was forgetting something: indeed, I had packed all our toiletries into the wrong bag back at home. Nothing that couldn’t be remedied by a quick trip to the pharmacy, Tahoe City being less “wilderness” and more “extension of the Bay Area for the full-time leisure class”.
Thus groceried, meal improvised, teeth brushed, we retired for an early night. Laswell woke me up early the next morning and I moved quietly around getting dressed to take him out. We just started half-walking / half-jogging down towards the lake and I was surprised to see so few people out on the bike/ped path that rings the lake — until I looked at my phone for a time check. I had gotten up and out at 5:50AM, no alarm clock or caffeine involved. Weird!
We explored with the help of the iPhone maps (better 3G signal strength than in San Francisco!) and found Skylandia State Park, welcoming and seemingly empty. The trail led enticingly on and we followed it at a trot. Partway down the trail I heard some loud crashing lumber sounds that put me in mind of someone stacking logs. Peering through the fog into the redwoods, I saw a large brown bear calmly dismantling a tree! He was far enough away that I didn’t feel in danger and Laswell fortunately did not react and so I just pressed on with a little more adrenaline in my bloodstream.
We ended up walking along this calm beach just as the sun was coming over the horizon.
A run back through the woods and up Dollar Hill (everyone say “Dollah Dollah Hill yall!”) returned us to base camp, where the others were beginning to stir. A plan was struck: get the boy some fishing tackle and advice from a local and go catch us some fish! We found a Real Hardware Store (via Stephenson Zodiac) and talked to the Fishin’ Guy employed therein, got our destination — Donner Lake — and headed out. We had only the vaguest idea of where on the lake we ought to be, but we just asked ourselves “WWFGD?” (What Would Fishin’ Guy Do?) and braced for an adventure.
We ended up on the wrong side of the state park fence, hiked a ways around the lake to the wrong shore (Fishin’ Guy: “North Shore”, what we did: “East Shore”), lost three hooks to rocks and trees…and had a blast. Jen in particular has a deep love of fishing, Laswell got to splash around in the water, G finally got to cast his rod (once, got stuck and had to get cut loose) and I mostly just sat around with a goofy grin on my face.
Catching fish is pretty clearly outside our core competency as a family, but it everyone had a really good time. We hiked back to the car, came back to Tahoe City and had a satisfying sandwich and espresso at the Dam Cafe to stave off the Big Crash. Then it was back to the rental for naps. (My personal goal on vacation is to nap at least once every day. It’s a high bar, I know, but if you don’t set an aggressive challenge you’ll never know what is possible.) Now my other two humans are at the pool and Laswell is out cold snoring next to me as I sip my Yirga Cheffe and write this up.
Day 1: Success. Tomorrow if the early-riser thing keeps up I’m going to try this loop I found on strava which looks like an appropriate level of climbing given my acclimatization to the thin air.