Lake Tahoe - Dream Vacation Part 2

I know what you're thinking.  "Damn, I just can't get enough of Kelly's vacation photos from four and a half months ago!"

Don't worry, I won't deprive you any longer of the continued torture excitement of re-living my vacation with me.

Since riding inner tubes down the ski runs and grabbing air on a waverunner wasn't really my mom's cup of tea, I needed to find an excursion that was more suitable for her.  Enter the Tahoe Queen - a genuine Mississippi paddle boat that was taken apart, shipped to Tahoe and re-assembled.  It departs several times a day for a tour of the lake and a visit to Emerald Bay.

Here's the kid posing next to a life preserver before we took off.

This is a view across the lake towards the Nevada side.  That beige blob in the center is Cave Rock.  It's an ancient lava flow that is hollow through the middle and was a sacred site for the local tribes of Native Americans.  We had a more up close visit to it later in our trip so you'll be able to see it in more detail.

I had to take a picture of the water color in Emerald Bay - now you can see how this area got it's name.  Usually you have to go the the Carribean to see water this color!



This boat dock is part of what is known as "Boat Camp."  The first time I ever was actually tempted to go camping was when I saw this set up.  You rent a boat, put all your gear in it and boat across the lake then tie up at one of the mooring spots here and take your pick of 25 campsites by picking a chit out of a box.  You then have this entire gorgeous bay basically to yourself for swimming, boating, fishing, etc.  Osprey, bald eagles and bears all frequent the area.

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the places you can swim to is Fannette Island located in the middle of the bay.  The captain of the Tahoe Queen told us some interesting stories about the history of this island.  We learned about Captain Dick who lived on the island and built his own tomb on it so he could be buried there.  Fate had something else in store, though, as he was lost in a storm on the lake and never buried on the island.  The structure on the top of the hill is a Tea House that was built by the owners of the nearby Vikingsholme estate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here's a closeup view of the Tea House.  It used to have a lovely wooden roof, but some idiots decided to build a fire inside it and they burned the roof off.

 

 



 

 

Here's a view of the Vikingsholme estate.  If you look at the far left of the building you can see it has a completely round tower.  The woman who built the estate brought a fantastically expensive round carpet from the Middle East specifically for that tower.  When she got it back here, she found that the tower (which was nearly complete at that time) was too small for the carpet - so she had it torn down and re-built to fit.

 

 

 

 

On the way out of the bay, the captain pointed out this tree that had been hit by lightning - and nesting far out on the top branch is a pair of ospreys.  There was a similar nest of bald eagles on the other side of the bay entrance, but it was so far away from the boat that I couldn't get a good picture.

 

 

 

 

I did manage to get a shot of one of the parent ospreys in flight, though.

 

 

 

 

We had so much fun on the Tahoe Queen that when we got back we decided to explore the Ski Run marina where it docks.  We made reservations to do more water activities like renting our own boat and going parasailing.  Plus, I found this cute mermaid statue!  The brown building with the large blue and green map of the lake on the wall that's in the background of this photo has a fantastic restaurant with a deck looking out over the marina and the lake.

 

 

 

 

And here's the view we had during dinner on the deck of that restaurant.  Pretty awesome sunset!

 

 



 

 

 

While we were there, I took a photo of these funny birds the locals refer to as "Helldivers."  I asked around, but nobody seemed to know what they are really called.  They all dive together as a group and the water is so clear, you can watch them jetting around underneath the surface as they hunt for fish.

 

 



 

 

The next day, we were back at the marina to rent our own power boat and take it out on the lake.  I'm not sure what got into us, because none of us have ever driven a boat before and we had no idea where we were going or what we were doing.  And did I mention that Lake Tahoe is...LARGE?  I mean it is really, really, huge.  But I got behind the wheel of this boat anyway and based on our tour the day before on the Tahoe Queen, I navigated us all the way across the lake and back to Emerald Bay.  Mom wanted a closer look at Vikingsholme.  The kid just wanted to show how cool he looks with his sunglasses on his forehead :-)

 

 



 

 

The next day it was parasailing time.  Here's the kid getting strapped in. 

 

 

 

Why no, I do NOT have a deathgrip on that safety strap, why do you ask?

 



 

Almost ready for take off...3...2...1...

And there we are...800 feet above the lake!  We had an option to go to 1200 feet, but Ryan and I both agreed that 800 turned out to be quite high enough thank you very much.  Amazing view!  I wish I'd been brave enough to take my camera up there with me but since it doesn't have a neck strap (or even a wrist one) I was just positive I'd manage to drop it so I left it on the boat with mom.  This was her first time operating a digital camera and I think she did pretty well.

Then it was time for our last day in Tahoe.  Since we'd spent most of our time on the California side or out on the water, we decided to drive up the Nevada side.  Our first stop was Cave Rock (remember I said you'd get a closer look?).  The highway actually passes through the center of the rock and we drove through it later in the day.  This photo is taken from the boat launch ramp directly below the cave looking up.

This was a pretty little cove near the Cave Rock boat ramp.  I can't remember the name of it, but I just loved the scenery so I took a photo of it.

 



 

 

Here's my little social butterfly making friends with some guys who were fishing off the rocks.  I'm so glad he didn't inherit much of my shy streak - he just went over and introduced himself and within a few minutes they were letting him use their fishing rods and helping him catch fish.  I was glad he had the experience because I had taken him to a trout farm in Tahoe earlier in the week where we had...an incident...which is worthy of its own blog entry it was so bizarre and I will write about it in a future post.  It was a little freaky at the time, but definitely one of those things you laugh about (and blog about), later.

 

After this stop, we went on up the highway to Incline Village where we checked out the Hyatt Resort (and all the rich people's cabins) and did some shopping.  Ryan had gotten a coupon from our hotel for a free stone arrowhead from a shop in the Village and he was determined to get it so we made sure to stop there.  They turned out to have gorgeous jewelry and lots of local crafts and food products (honey, various jams, etc.)  It was a great way to spend our last day.

 

Next entry...the trip home :-)

 

KJ

 

Lake Tahoe - Dream Vacation Part 1

Gosh, it feels so good to be back! Thanks so much for the comment-y love, y'all (my writer's voice has apparently decided to try on a Southern accent for no reason whatsoever...just roll with it). 

I was going to take a break from the whole "come over and look at my vacation photos" thing with a whole post about new stuff I made over the holiday break, but we had freaky (for California) weather all day yesterday AND I've suddenly found myself if the most ridiculous dispute with my neighbors (really, when I tell you about it you will be amazed at how stupid it is) and I was a little afraid to go out there even if it had stopped raining.  Soooo...no photos yet. 

Instead I was forced to stay inside and get my creativity on...it was really horrible.  I suffered terribly.  Anyway, photos and more details about all of that to come in later posts.

Here's what happened when we arrived in Tahoe.

This is the view looking back down at the lake and our hotel (the gray building at the bottom of the right gondola cable) as we rode the gondola up the mountain to the ski area. 

The gondola was literally right outside our hotel window - we would have breakfast in our room in the morning and wave at people riding by in the cars.  The mountains in the background are on the California side of the lake.  Everyone knows that the California-Nevada state line runs through the lake, right?  About 2/3s of it is on the Cal side and the other 1/3 is on the Nevada side.  Our hotel was one block from the state line - all the hotels on the other side of that line have casinos.

Here's a shot I took to show the incredible water color of the lake.  The deeper sections are a beautiful blue and the shallower water closer to the coastline is a bright emerald green.  Sadly, we learned that the lighter color is being caused by an invasive species of clam - millions of white shells lying on the bottom reflect light and make the water appear lighter.

Grandma and the kid on the observation platform halfway to the ski area.

Even in the summer time, there's lots to do up at the ski area.  They had this innertube slide thingy and the kid spent HOURS doing it.  That clear plastic tube in the background has a moving catwalk in it that carries you up to the launch point and then you sit in the innertube and slide down the hill.

I nearly fell off a wall and died trying to get a shot of this guy.  He kept hanging around the pool deck and sqauwking every day so I figured he WANTED his picture taken.

He was so darned fast, though, that this was the best shot I could get - a genuine blue jay!

Our hotel had its own private beach and even though this was Labor Day weekend...look how deserted it was...well, except for the seagull.

 

 

 

This is the view from the boat dock at our beach looking over towards the Nevada side.  I rented a Waverunner from this dock and took the kid out on his first ever jetski ride.  I earned MAJOR "cool mom" points for that...especially when I really hit the gas and we caught some air.  Ryan told me that he never thought I could do something like that and I thought "SCORE!"

 

Stay tuned for more because this was only the first couple of days of our trip!

 

KJ

Lake Tahoe - The Ride There

Happy 2013!  I'm not dead (nothwithstanding all the rumors to the contrary).  I also didn't permanently re-locate to Lake Tahoe...although it was a very near thing.  We had the absolute trip of a lifetime and created some fantastic memories that I don't think I will ever forget.

Which was great considering that the months since then were a long nightmare of work, work and...more work.  Very little beading, resining or shopping was done, but 2013 is looking a lot brighter (she said optimistically from only 4 days into it).  The project-from-hell seems to be over with the exception of some nitpicky final clean up items and while I don't usually do resolutions, I did decide to firmly re-apply myself to the blog and get it back up and running.

Seeing as how I left off with a teaser about heading to Tahoe, I thought I'd pick up at that point and bring everything up to date.  I may even bring in some heavy duty bead porn in a week or so because Santa gave me both the time and the $$$ to get my shopping on.

But first...a bit about our Tahoe adventure...

Think back to summertime.  A good thing to do this time of year in the midst of snow, wind, rain, etc.  It was the week leading up to Labor Day weekend and I somehow managed to not only wrangle us a timeshare exchange at the Lake Tahoe Marriott, but also to convince my mother that I was capable of driving her, me and the kid there and back.  She's been reluctant to do anything like this since Dad passed away, but I guess she had some wanderlust going on because she agreed to go.

Then we realized the kid had a big Scout event on the day we wanted to leave so our departure was delayed to 5 PM.  Meaning that I was going to get to drive the three of us up the 395 through the desert in pitch dark and probably not pull into Bishop (the halfway point) until midnight or so.  Amazingly, mom still agreed to go and I pretended that I was NOT NERVOUS AT ALL.

 

We got into Victorville about 6:30 PM and had dinner and then it was out into the desert.  Since I was driving (and it was pitch dark), there are no pictures from that portion of the trip, but I sure wish there were.  I'd thought that hours of darkness in the desert would make for a really boring ride and an opportunity for my mom to nag mention all things she thinks I am not doing well enough need to work on.  But we got along well and the desert was beautiful at night with lots of stars and, surprisingly, a large jackrabbit right at the road's edge about every three miles or so.  We made a game out of counting them until the kid piped up from the back seat and let us know in no uncertain terms that we were ahem! keeping him awake.

 

11:30 PM found us taking a potty break in Lone Pine and as I stood in the parking lot waiting for mom to finish and come back outside I thought "gee, it's weird to see all these birds flying around at night."  At which point I realized:

1. Only owls fly at night
2. These weren't owls
3. Holy crap!  Bats!  Everywhere!

I decided to finish waiting in the car even though the kid was in there complaining (again) about being woken up.  He likes his sleep that one.

 

Another hour saw us arriving in Bishop for our overnight stay at the Creekside Inn.  I highly recommend it.  Not only is a fairly nice breakfast included in the price of the stay, but there's a cute creek (hence the name) with fish that runs right through the parking lot.  AND...it's right next store to the world famous Schat's Bakery where you can get all kinds of wonderful fresh baked breads, cookies, etc. and sandwiches made to order for the rest of your trip.

 

We rested up, had a nice breakfast, checked out the creek and fish and grabbed some goodies from the bakery and then hit the road.  Later, we pulled into the visitor's center in Mammoth Lakes for a lunch break and some research.  I quizzed the local guides on possibilities for short side trips between Mammoth and Tahoe.  We had originally thought we'd go to the Devil's Postpile, but it was a little more out of the way that we had time for.

 

The guide recommended Obsidian Half Dome and the Tufa Towers (what?) at Mono Lake.  Mom nixed the Half Dome as soon as she saw the turn off onto a gasp! gravel road.  She wasn't too keen on me taking her Lexus there (which really means that I am not Dad and gravel roads are where her trust in me as a driver ends).  So, we kept on until we hit the turn off for Mono Lake.  I still had no idea what a Tufa Tower was, but we were damned sure going to see them!

 

 

 

Still no idea what a Tufa is, but here's a view of the lake as we approached it.

 

 



 

 

Ohhhh...so THAT's what a Tufa is.

 



And here's what they look like from a distance.

 

 

And from up close.

 

 



 

 

And from the inside.

 



 

 

 

And here's a little bit more about Mono Lake.  VERY salty.  And home to brine shrimp and brine flies...and lots of birds that eat both.

 



Here's one of the lake docents showing the kid how to catch brine shrimp.

 

If you look at about the 5 o'clock position in the water in this cup and see a tiny, brownish, hairy squiggle...that's a brine shrimp.  If you ever had "Sea Monkeys"...then you've seen them before.

More Tufa Towers out in the water.

This was such a neat place to visit and althought I'd always heard of Mono Lake, I had no idea that it was basically a small "Salt Sea" and I certainly hadn't heard about the Tufa Towers.  We also learned that the level of the lake has dropped drastically over the last 50 years to the point where it was feared it couldn't recover.  All the Tufas in pictures 3-5 above used to be deep under water.  A project was finally begun a few years ago to try to help the lake recover and it has made some progress, but is not out of the woods yet.  If you are ever in the area, I recommend taking the time to visit because it may not be around forever.

After this stop, we drove the rest of the way to Tahoe stopping only for a couple of potty breaks.  The bad part about being the photogropher AND the driver is no photos during the drive.  However, I had plenty of photo opportunities once we got to Tahoe and I'll share that in the next installment.

Happy 2013 to everyone...I sure missed this!

KJ

 

 

Wildlife Encounters

I think I've mentioned (probably a few too many times) that this summer has been one, long slog of work, work and more work. Which makes me so very grateful that I managed to "bookend" it with a couple of vacations. We're leaving for Lake Tahoe in a few days and back at the very beginning of the summer, we squeaked in four days in Carlsbad.

Now, I've been to Carlsbad before and while it's pretty and enjoyable, it's mostly the same as the other So Cal beaches closer to my home. However, this time, we had some wildlife encounters that were truly "once in a lifetime" and I wanted to share them.





So, no wildlife yet (because I am a tease that way)...this was our first afternoon there just walking along the sand.





There's something about that end of the day light at the beach. It has such a beautiful golden quality to it.





We took a day-trip a little farther down the coastline to La Jolla and walking along this path looking over the cliff edge we saw seagulls NESTING! After all my years as a So Cal beach girl, I'm very familiar with seagulls, of course. But I have NEVER once seen them nesting! I wasn't fast enough with the camera to catch a shot of the babies, but this bird is sitting on two little balls of fluff...beige with black speckles. Again, first time I've EVER seen baby gulls!





But the biggest reason we went down to La Jolla was to check out the sea lions and harbor seals who hang out on the rocks there. These are mostly adults or larger juveniles.





Then we headed down to what is known as the "Children's Pool" in La Jolla. For years, this beach has been closed to the public and given over to the seals and sea lions. The closes you could get was to walk along the top of the sea wall and look down at them.

Not any more. We were THRILLED to find out the beach was open and you could literally stand within feet of wild seals.





I'm actually standing ON the end of this rock to get this photo of baby harbor seals snoozing.





My camera makes it look farther away, but I could have reached out and touched them (if I'd been stupid enough to try it...which I wasn't).





Here's a bit of a closer view - it was hard to manage the camera while standing on slippery rocks with waves coming in every few seconds!





My only regret is that I didn't wear my bathing suit that day since we didn't anticipate the beach being open. If I had, I could've joined the people who were swimming in the water WITH the seals. Oooh...I was so tempted to go in anyway because, really, how often can you say you got to swim with wild seals, but it just wasn't practical given that I had no towel to dry off with or even other clothes to change into and we had other destinations to visit the rest of the day.

Still, it will go down as one of THE coolest moments of my life!

I hope the upcoming Tahoe trip will be equally memorable. I'm not looking forward to the 8 hour drive, but I am so totally desperate to get out of work mode and give my brain a vacation that I'm sure it will be worth it in the end. I've only ever been there once before, when I was 12 or so, and barely remember it so it'll be a lot of fun to discover all the things there are to see and do there.

So far we're planning on renting waverunners, parasailing on the lake, trout fishing, maybe taking a day trip to Yosemite or a sight seeing bus or boat trip all around the lake. We might even head over the border to Nevada to check out an old silver mine and ride a vintage mining train...

Hopefully, I'll have some good photos to blog about afterwards and maybe it won't take me 2 months to get them up like it did with this post.

Of course, when we get back, school starts just a couple of days later and I can't believe the kid will be in 4th grade already!

KJ

A Visit to Tucker Wildlife Center

Or, I could have titled this post "Rumors of my Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated." It's been awful not being able to keep this is current like I have in the past! A recent promotion at work has meant a significant increase in my workload which means much less down time for things like blogging and jewelry-making. Every time I pass by my bead table I can hear the beads crying from loneliness. I'm sure things will eventually get back on track, but at least in the meantime, I'm rakin' the overtime pay LOL!

I first uploaded this pictures back in May! They are from a wonderful little wildlife and nature preserve in our local Saddleback mountains called Tucker Wildlife Center. We visited it for Mother's Day and then went to lunch at a nearby restaurant afterwards. It was such a beautiful place and really fantastic for bird watching - especially hummingbirds. I just wish I'd been fast enough with my camera to catch more of them in photos!





This is Silverado Creek that runs through the back edge of the property. You can see that even though it was only late May, it was already starting to dry up. We didn't have normal rainfall amounts this year so things are pretty dry.





This is a darling little genuine wishing well. You can even lower the bucket if you want to!





When I first walked by this pond, I thought these guys were actually statues because they were so still. Nope, actual turtles that live in the pond...out for a sun bath!





This is Henry, the desert tortoise out for a stroll.





This is supposed to be a bird feeder, but from what I could tell, the squirrels had pretty much taken over the buffet.

There's a fantastic bird watching enclosure with feeders all around it and we identified at least 10 different bird species, not including all the hummingbirds we saw. Unfortunately, I just wasn't good enough with my camera to catch any of that action - especially since we had three wiggly boys with us (my son and my two nephews) who inevitably moved or made noise and scared away the birds just as I was about to snap a picture.

Hope everyone is having a great summer and I hope to get back to blogging more regularly Real Soon Now.

KJ