Kevin and I took a week off work and we all headed up to beautiful Lake Tahoe for a late summer vacation. None of us had ever been before so it was truly an adventure.We had the best time. This was definitely one of our favorite vacation so far! Tahoe is absolutely beautiful! I'm amazed still by how crystal clear the water is, how far down you can see and the brilliant shades of turquoise and blue you see. The ombre effect almost looks fake. I've seen the Keep Tahoe Blue stickers before but now I get it. We definitely need to go back here again some day.
The drive time was between 7- 7.5 hours. We only stopped 1 time each way (Bishop) for the restroom but otherwise it was an easy and enjoyable ride. We drove by a couple of lakes, some cute little small towns and seeing everything so green was a nice change. The kids all loved the tummy ticklers and laughed and laughed on every one. We hit a little bit of rain on the way in but the entire week in Tahoe was clear, warm and sunny. We had perfect weather, especially since they were having a heat wave back at home.
We stayed on the California side of stateline on the South side of the lake right at the base of Heavenly. It was clearly the touristy area with tons of restaurants, shops, hotels, movie theater and miniature golf course. We loved walking around the area each night and trying different local restaurants and enjoying the crisp evening air.
Another day we hopped back in the car and drove all around the lake. We stopped at a few view points to see Emerald Bay and Vikingsholm Castle and ventured off a bit into Truckee to check out the Donner Pass Museum and Memorial (we stopped and had a snack under the memorial). We loved seeing all the houses around the lake and how different each side was from each other. There were so many people out hiking which looked awesome but is just too hard with the kids right now. Next time.
We spent one entire day pretty much out on the lake by renting a boat. It was hands-down our favorite part of the trip and money well spent. The lake is so massive we would go for quite awhile without seeing another boat. We got to go right into Emerald Bay and get fairly close to the castle, which the girls were dying to see. We all (except Andrew) took turns jumping in the water from the boat and then scrambling right back out because it was cold but refreshing. The color and clarity of the water when you're out in the water was amazing. Like I said, I couldn't get over how absolutely blue it was! Andrew hated the lifejacket at first but once he acclimated, or figured out we weren't taking it off, he got used to it. He was laughing and giggling almost the whole time on the boat. He loved when we would go fast and the wind would blow in his face or when it would get bumpy. His favorite part was the button for the horn. He kept pushing it! We finally had to ban him from it because he kept honking it when other boats were around. When we were in Emerald Bay, going pretty slow and there were other boats around he sat in my lap and waved and everyone. It was so cute! Hi daredevil sisters though... they rode in the very front of the boat nearly the whole time. They wanted faster and bumpier. They laughed, let the waves splash them until they were soaked and had the biggest smiles on their faces the whole time. Those 2 are boat people, for sure. The rocking of the boat and sun put Andrew to sleep for a short morning nap and then he slept the whole way back until we docked the boat. I'm so glad we decided to get a boat and go out on the lake!
Thursday it was windy and they weren't letting the small boats out so we got really lucky that we had already done our boat excursion. We spent that day down at the beach playing in the water and sand. Most afternoons we came back to our hotel for Andrew's afternoon nap. The girls would go down and swim in the hotel pool and then we'd enjoy the hotel's happy hour before venturing out for dinner. We had some delicious restaurants too. We enjoyed Blue Dog Pizza, California Burger Co, Red Hut, Chevy's, Nestle Tollhouse Bakery and Hard Rock Cafe.
The highlight of the trip for Andrew, and usually the only way we could get him to put his shoes on, was riding the elevator (he called it the "up up down down"). He wouldn't let anyone hold him in the elevator, he liked to be standing on his own looking out of the glass. He would say "up up up" or "down down down" as it moved every time. We made quite a few friends on the elevators because of him.
We came home Friday so we would have the weekend to unpack, do laundry and get ready for the girls' last week of summer before school starts. What a wonderful way to end summer!
Comments
Post a Comment