Now we were heading for 4 straight nights of camping, our longest stretch of the trip, so we needed groceries. There was a Safeway not far from Karen's place, but she suggested we go a few blocks further to Trader Joe's. we had heard of Trader Joe's from a grocery store junkie friend of ours, so we were familiar with their wares, and we happily filled a small cart to get our small but hungry family across the dry belly of America. As usual, the Berry-Davies' made the choice to eat well, but our modest camp kitchen had to be considered. The piece de resistance was a beautiful organic watermelon, a fruit Gord had recently discovered, and now treated with almost as much delight delight as his beloved ice cream.
Trunk full we headed to a nearby 711 for ice and hit the road. Today was a short(ish) drive to the California side of Lake Tahoe, but we didn't know what traffic would be like so we made haste and put the Pacific to our backs. From Livermore we headed West on the 205, and from there took the 5 North toward Sacramento. These were high, mountainous roads, but as I've said before, the US know how to build their expressways. We snaked our way through these high, dry passes travelling at 130 km/h and barely keeping up with traffic. In the state capital we got on the 50 and headed for South Lake Tahoe. It was a fairly uneventful drive, which can be good every once in a while.
When we arrived at the beginning of this tourist region the temperature had climbed to 36 C and tall conifer trees had replaced the desert scrub brush. More importantly our sleeping and clean baby had mutated into a stinky and unhappy one. Some of you may know of my ire of a certain Scottish burger joint, but I've never been shy about using them for their facilities, so we stopped into the first one we saw. Karma must have been paying attention because neither the men's nor the ladie's restrooms had change tables. Isn't this supposed to be a place that caters to kids and families? No problem though, the play land attached to the 'restaurant' was unoccupied, so we laid down a receiving blanket on a table and cleaned up up little man there. Sorry about your luck, clown! (Side note: I have been appalled over the course of this trip at the lack of change tables in men's rooms. A are supposed to have a progressive society, and I am a Dad who wouldn't flinch at the thought of changing my babe's diaper, most Dad's I know are the same. So why then hasn't the hospitality industry followed suit? Maybe I'll start a petition campaign when I get home - Diaper Tables for Daddies?)
With the diaper situation fixed we now wanted a place to eat. Remember we had just bought a whole mess of groceries, so we wanted a picnic. But it was also approaching sun-surface temperatures, so we were unsure. Then, like an angel sent from above, we saw it. A grass patch that was the median of a parking lot, just in front of the car, shaded by a handful of tale pine trees. Perfect. We threw down our picnic blanket and laid out a spread of hummus, veggie sticks, ginger snap cookies and, of course, watermelon. It was easily 8 C cooler in the shade and we enjoyed a relaxing break from the car while we munched.
After our meal me packed back up and dove into Tahoe. Lake Tahoe is big, not Great Lake big, but big enough that it can host thousands of people daily. Our camp site for the night was in Sugar Pine Point State Park, which I knew was on the West side of the lake, about halfway up. So jumped on California state highway 89 and headed North. This road was familiar - if you've driven on highway 11, you'd recognize it here. Winery, busy and full of camp grounds, restaurants, bike rentals, beaches and all manner of tourist trap. What was different about this road, however, was how steep and winding it was. People flock to Tahoe in the summer to swim and boat in the deep and beautiful fresh waters of the lake itself, but in the winter skiers flock here for the best skiing between Whistler and Colorado. The landscape is dramatic, the roads narrow, and the hills serious. I gave WIDE berths to any cyclists I saw, an unwritten/unsaid piece tip of the hat.
Before too long we reached the park and made camp. It was pretty sweet - lots of trees, a big and new bear box, a great fire pit and fairly good privacy for a park this size. W weren't that hungry and it was still sweltering so we decided to head down the road a mile to Sugar Pine Point Beach. We wore our suits as well, unsure if it would be warm enough to swim, but we wanted to be prepared, especially with our little fish.
It didn't take long to reach the beach parking lot, and with beach bag packed we headed for the shore. A few hundred feet and a decently steep hill found us on a path about 20 feet from the water's edge, but we were still about 8 feet above the waves, and we walked on a ways before we could find a path down to the beach.
We said we were uncertain about swimming, and that's because everywhere you look here there are big signs that read "CAUTION: Extremely Cold Water". But we'd come from Lake Superior, and we cottage on Georgian Bay, so we quickly out our feet in. Babies! It wasn't the bath water of Lake Erie, but it wasn't that bad. What was bad was the beach. Jagged little gravel designed by Pol Pot to torture your feet, and it didn't give way to sand once in the water, couldn't find an end to it. Nevertheless, we were here to swim, and it was hot, so we limped and cursed our way through and finally found water deep enough to submerge. It was cold enough to take your breath away when you plunged in, but not the daggers of Superior. We had Gord Ina little wet suit, but still we were careful to not put him in too deep or too long. He still loved it and we splashed around for 20 minutes or so.
Thoroughly wet, we limped (I swam as far as I could) back to shore and got out of the water like we were stepping over hot coals. And then we realized it, the beach (except for the sharp pine needles) was gorgeous. And all the people, boats and dogs made it very agreeable to our little man. We sat, lounged and lay on shore until the clock struck 6:00 and decided to pack up and head back to our home for the night for some eats - tonight it was tacos!
After dinner we went in a nice stroll through the woods with Gord in the carrier. Tahoe hosts the 1960 Winter Olympics, and the trails we were walking on were part of the cross country ski course. Eventually the bugs (mosques) chased us back to the fire, but it was a nice stroll after a mostly relaxing day. With fire popping and hissing we got rap easy for bed and enjoyed a peaceful respit under the California sky for the last time (for a while anyway).
TOTAL FUEL FILL UPS: 7
DAILY WILDLIFE: Dogs, chipmunks, lots of birds and some cows, horses and sheep coming through California farm country.
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