Highlights: August 2019 (Part 2: Birthday in Lake Tahoe)

IMG_6732

Someone had a milestone birthday this year!  Although it was a packed first half of August, I had planned for a trip to Lake Tahoe to celebrate SMS’ birthday.  We rented a cabin and invited a few of our friends.  It was an amazing weekend and I absolutely love Lake Tahoe.  It is so beautiful.

So, to back up, we arrived in San Diego on the 7th and had a family dinner to celebrate SMS’ birthday.  The next day, we flew up North and got ready for our Tahoe weekend.  We did celebrate by going to Taverna for a delicious Greek meal.  I ordered the grilled octopus which I don’t get too often since SMS doesn’t care for it but it was amazing.  Yum!

IMG_6726
SMS gets a great present from John!
IMG_6729
We had a superhero visit for the party!

The next day, we drove up to Lake Tahoe.  We stopped at our normal lunch spot in Sacramento, the Magpie Cafe.  We got to the house mid-afternoon.  John was already there and we hung out while waiting for our other friends to arrive.  The house was absolutely gorgeous and from the start, we knew we had picked out a great place for an awesome weekend.

The next day, we had big plans for an awesome mountain biking ride.  Four of us went- SMS and his friend Michelle are good bikers, Akshay and I not so much.  But we were in shape and we could hang.  Akshay hadn’t even been on a bike in years!

IMG_6741

Screen Shot 2019-12-22 at 8.51.56 AM

We went on the Flume trail which started with 4 miles uphill, 4 miles traversing the flat ridgeline overlooking Lake Tahoe (amazing!), and 4 miles downhill back to the bike shop.  It was a lot of fun and really beautiful.  We rented our bikes from Flume Trail bikes, which has the highest recommendation from me!  We took the shuttle van up to the trailhead and then began our bike ride.

IMG_6742
Marlette Lake

IMG_6746

IMG_6750
Such a weird picture- don’t worry, I didn’t actually break my bike into two!

The uphill eventually smoked Akshay and I.  There was an older guy who was with his son and son’s friend who kept riding back and forth, encouraging us and his not-so-in-shape companions along.  It was simultaneously nice, impressive, and annoying.

IMG_6752

IMG_6753
Lake Tahoe

IMG_6756

I stopped at one particularly beautiful vista along the way.  Even though the ridgeline was flat, it was pretty narrow and required a lot of my concentration.  So, for a bit, I stopped to look at the view which was extraordinary.

That night, we had a taco feast with veg and non-veg options.  SMS chose a Japanese-style  roll sponge cake from Satura.  It was a really great time with a wonderful group of people.

The next day, we decided to go to Mt. Rose for a hike.  It was a hike near Incline Village and had good reviews on AllTrails but other than that, I didn’t know a lot about it.  The first two miles led to a waterfall that was very pretty.

IMG_6764
Starting out on the Mt Rose trail

IMG_6766

IMG_6767

IMG_6781

The highlight of the hike for me was beyond that, when we were walking up the mountain.  We happened to be hiking during butterfly migration season (I think) and for the last mile of the hike, there were butterflies everywhere.  The little clip below shows what I called “Butterfly Alley.”  All those moving dot?  Butterflies!!

SMS and I were the only ones who decided to go to the summit.  The views of Lake Tahoe were magnificent!

IMG_6783

IMG_6785

On the way back, the trail cut its way through beautiful chaparral.

IMG_6802

IMG_6794

I had SMS and John walk back and forth twice to get this picture…two Eagle Scouts in one picture!  We went back to the house where the hot tub was being put to good use by the A family.

IMG_6808
Lower altitude view from the Mt Rose trail.

The next morning, it was just SMS and I in the house.  I had a cup of coffee, enjoyed the view, and pretended the house was mine.

IMG_6811

IMG_6815
View from the lower deck of the house.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: