California trip, June 20, 2013

What a glorious day of sightseeing this was! I write this blog at about 10:00 p.m. after a thoroughly engaging day. We awoke to a glorious day full of promise, as the sun was glistening off the waters of Donner Lake. We had yogurt with fruit as well as English muffins and some good Wolfgang Puck coffee. After that we packed up and headed for the Donner Memorial State Park, which is near the site where the ill-fated Donner party was stranded trying to cross the Sierra Nevadas during the severe winter of 1846-1847. As members of the 89-person party died, some of those remaining resorted to cannibalism, and only 47 were rescued. The Emigrant Trail Museum at the site had exhibits about railroad and natural history, logging and immigrants. We also saw the Pioneer Monument near the museum, and watched a 26-minute film on the Donner Party catastrophe. Then we made our way from Hwy. 80 to SR 267, with a short stop at Northstar, a ski resort and village, to King's Beach, Agate Bay, and our first glimpse of Lake Tahoe, where we had lunch of hummus, raw cauliflower and broccoli, cheese, radishes, and cantaloupe at a picnic table overlooking Agate Bay. Lake Tahoe holds enough water to cover the entire state of California to a depth of 14 inches. It was named "big water" by the Washoe Indians. It is said that the water in Lake Tahoe is 97% pure, nearly the same as distilled water. Remarkably clear and deep blue, the lake is 22 miles long and 12 miles wide. About one-third lies in Nevada. Its average depth is 989 feet; the deepest point is 1,645 feet, making Tahoe the third deepest lake in North America. The first 12 feet below the surface can warm to 68 F in the summer, while depths below 700 ft. remain a constant 39 degrees. It lies at an elevation of 6,229 ft. between the Sierra Nevadas and an eastern offshoot, the Carson Range. The mountains, which are snowcapped except in late summer, rise more than 4,000 ft. above the resort-lined shore. After lunch, we got back in the car and made our way down the western shoreline of Lake Tahoe--Tahoe Vista, Carnelian Bay, Cedar Flat, Dollar Point, Lake Forest, Tahoe City, Tahoe Pines, Homewood, Chambers Lodge, and Tahoma, stopping shortly after Tahoma to walk the grounds and see the splendid Hellman-Ehrman mansion, in Ed Z'Berg-Sugar Pine Point State Park. The two-story Queen Anne-style mansion known as Pine Lodge was built in 1902 for San Francisco banker Hellman and is a fine example of a Tahoe summer house. On the grounds are an 1870 cabin, a nature center, and nature trails--besides an amazing view of Lake Tahoe. From there, our route went on by Meeks and Rubicon bays to Emerald Bay and our next stop, the amazing Vikingsholm, an amazing Scandinavian-inspired house belonging to the Knight family, who were enamored of the bay because it reminded them of the fjords of Norway. Additionally, there is a little island in the bay which houses the remains of a tea house where Ms. Knight and visitors would be rowed out for tea. We walked down a rather steep, one-mile path, walked the grounds and toured the house, then walked up again and contined down the western shoreline of Lake Tahoe, to the town of South Lake Tahoe, close to the California / Nevada border. In South Lake Tahoe we stopped for dinner at Artemis Mediterranean Restauranrt, where we had dolmas and then shared an entree of steak, mashed potatoes, and zucchini. On our way back to our place, we stopped at Squaw Valley, where the 1960 Winter Olympics were held, and I took some pictures for friends like Ann who I know will enjoy them. It was almost nightfall by that point in time. Our last event of the day was to have dessert at the Truckee Dairy Queen--each of us had a dipped cone, which we hadn't had in years and which was scrumptious! Splendid day, and the scenery was sublime! What joy!