Lake Tahoe

A couple of weeks ago I went to Reno and Lake Tahoe with my boyfriend. I never got a chance to post the pics, so I will post them now to hold you all over while I am formulating my next "current" post.

Lake Tahoe is an alpine lake that straddles the California/Nevada border up north of Sacramento, CA. It is the(I think) third deepest lake in the U.S., with a depth of (I think) 1600 feet or so at its deepest point. It is surrounded on all sides by mountains. In the summer, it's a hot spot for lake activities while in the winter it's popular for skiing and snowboarding (the mountains get a ton of snow).

Here's a picture of the lake from the road when we were driving down from Reno


The water is incredibly clear, and it's a beautiful blue color.


Even though it was May, there was still quite a bit of snow on the mountains surrounding the lake


When we were driving you could see the snow was melting and creating little waterfalls all over the place along the road. Here you can kind of see where the snowmelt is flowing down the rocks.


We stayed in South Tahoe, which is right on the Nevada/California border. On the Nevada side, there are some casinos. On the California side is the majority of the town.

Here is a picture I took while we were driving through South Tahoe. It's a cute little town. It reminds me of Angelfire, NM or Durango, CO.


We kept busy while we were in the town. One day we went horseback riding in the mountains, which was awesome. One of the nights we were there, we spent time at the Harrah's casino gambling. At the casino, we got to see a free show put on by a Tom Petty impersonator. His band was called Petty Theft. It was a good show - the lead singer definitely resembles Tom Petty. I'm a big Tom Petty fan so I really enjoyed the show.




On our final evening there, we took a dinner/dance cruise on the MS Dixie II paddle boat across the lake from South Tahoe to Emerald Cove and back. If any of you are ever up there, I highly recommend this cruise. You have a nice three-course dinner followed by drinking and dancing once it gets dark. The scenery is beautiful, and the paddle boats are fun to ride.

Here's a picture of one of their paddle boats. This isn't the one we took but they all look the same so this is a good substitute.


Here's a shot I took of the paddle wheel when we were in the middle of the lake.


We ate inside on the main level while the sun was setting.


The sunset was beautiful from the middle of the lake, and once we got close to the other side we had some nice views of the snow-covered mountains. The lake was beautiful too - it was like glass once it started getting dark and the air cooled.




This is a shot of the entrance to Emerald Cove.


After we entered the cove, it got pretty dark - so that was the end of the photo opportunities. Once in the cove, you get a view Vikingsholm Castle. It's a fancy summer home that was built in 1929 by Mrs. Lora Josephine Knight (no relation - I don't think). After learning more about the castle, I added it to my list of places to visit when I return to California in the fall.

After dinner, the set up a band and a bar in the upper level and everyone got to go drink and dance for a couple of hours. It was strange while dancing because you could easily forget you were out in the middle of a deep lake.

The dinner/dance cruise was a perfect way to end our brief stay in Tahoe. After that, it was back to the grind of real life. We drove home on Sunday morning, and Brian flew out of Oakland to go home that evening while I buckled down to study for finals...blech.