Lake Tahoe

We headed out pretty early from our parking lot for the relatively short drive to South Lake Tahoe.  We had gone over the GPS directions versus our atlas and decided to rule against the GPS route.  Why was it sending us on these roads that weren't the main road into town?  It recalculated once we passed the turn it wanted us to take, but at one point was telling us to do a U-turn and go back the way it originally wanted.  Why??  Well, we turned a corner and saw a tunnel with a clearance sign lower than what we are. After some panic and further (but slower) driving, we discovered the middle of the tunnel was also marked and was plenty high.  After we drove through, I noticed the GPS had had a cow.  "Vertical Clearance Violation!!"  Yeah, we knocked our ceiling off, but it's all good, GPS Lady.

As we drove into town, there was lots of congestion for the holiday weekend.  Tahoe is like Myrtle Beach on a touristy level.  We drove by a grassy park-type area right on the lake that already had people setting up (like 9am) chairs and blankets and sun canopies for fireworks later that night.  We decided to forego that craziness and watched the Macy's fireworks on TV.

Our campground was pretty nice.  We were in a premium site, but did not have a firepit (like some) or even a picnic table, like basically everyone around us.  Luckily we had brought a portable table.  The laundry room was lacking, but the boys liked the arcade version of Ms. Pac Man that was in there.

One day Chuck drove to a bike shop to get a map and scoop on where to ride.  He came up with a 30ish mile ride up the mountain and said he would be gone about 5 hours.  He texted me at one point, "I'm up at the snow. Going to be longer than I thought."  Umm-kay.

Another day we all took our bikes on the city bike route with some scenic stops along the way.  We went to some beaches, a stream with an underwater viewing area, some historical locations, and a smaller, more beautiful mountain lake.

The last day we drove to a resort and rented canoes.  They also had kayaks and paddle boats, but for some reason we chose canoes.  I went with Zack and Chuck went with Ben, and it felt pretty unstable from the get-go.  The girl helping us load up said, "these tip pretty easy."  So, I basically didn't move a muscle other than those required for rowing.  We did not tip, but I didn't really enjoy it.  After returning the canoes, we walked down to a beach with some huge rocks that we just had to climb on.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that while we were driving across NV a rock chipped our windshield.  So, we got that fixed while in Tahoe.