June 5 - Tahoe Day 3

There are about a billion different hikes in the Tahoe area, but we only had time for one, so we chose the 3 mile round trip to the Picnic Rock scenic outlook, which also covers a small section of the Tahoe Rim Trail.  

 

There are actually multiple rocks to have your picnic on, and we got to temporarily claim one as our own.

 

It was the perfect vantage point with a view of nearly the entire lake.

I climbed some of the neighboring rocks and met a chipmunk.

Picnic Rock is a popular trail, and on the way back the trail was getting very crowded, so we decided to try an alternate route back to the road on a mountain bike path with almost no traffic.  It added an extra 1.5-2 miles to our total trip, but it was well worth it to enjoy some solitude.

There were SO MANY beautiful wildflowers on this path.

 

At a certain elevation, we encountered this strange red... thing all by itself in a clearing.  We legitimately wondered if we’d stumbled on some rare non-native plant (I wanted to believe it was an alien), until we looked it up with Dad’s plant app and discovered it’s a Snowflower, a relative of heather that has a symbiotic relationship with a fungus that infects trees.  Not so far off from the alien thing.  As we headed down further, we ended up passing quite a few of them.

 

...including these buds, which are extra weird and cool.

More wildflowers...

And this lichen that was EVERYWHERE and looks pretty from a distance but up-close has these black eye things that are pure nightmare fuel!

Back at lake-level, we drove into the town of King’s Beach for ice cream cones, then found a public beach to lounge on for a bit.

The water here was actually legit WARM, but the wind made it a little chilly for a long swim.  I got in for a bit but we mostly napped in the sand.

We also found this tiny secluded pebble beach around the corner on our way out.  We could have stayed in Tahoe exploring for weeks!  But this was a beautiful day to end our too-brief visit.

 

June 4 - Tahoe Day 2

 

I had a work call at 11 am on Friday morning, so we took it easy and didn’t head out until lunchtime.  Our first stop was Red Truck on the Runway, a cafe at the Truckee-Tahoe Airport with a great view of the runway.

They specialize in Indian-Mexican-American combos - we got sweet potato samosas, a naan dog, and falafel tacos that were all delicious.

Several planes took off and landed while we ate, including one private plane whose passengers discharged so deliberately out of view of the cafe, we can only assume those were some Very Famous Ankles we saw going from the steps to the waiting SUV.

Afterwards we made the quick drive to Truckee to check out the Truckee River (which also runs through Reno) and the downtown area.

We got ice cream at Little Truckee Creamery near Donner Lake, then found a nice little waterfront park to sit a spell.

There were two cute dogs playing fetch in the water...

And a guy wind-surfing who fell off his board so frequently that it was painful to watch, but damn he was determined!  He’s probably out there doing flips and cool tricks today and wondering why no tourists are watching him now.

June 3 - Lake Tahoe Day 1

We knew we’d have to go around Lake Tahoe on the route to Chico, but we didn’t know much about the area, and weren’t expecting much more than fancy ski resorts and lakeside mansions.  It turned out to be one of our favorite stops on the entire trip.  The water is stunningly beautiful on its own, but with combined with the 360 degree mountain views (the tallest still topped with snow) every view looks BETTER than a postcard.

We hit the lake on the eastern side, near Sand Harbor.  It’s one of the most popular beaches, and the regular parking lot was full by the time we arrived at 11 am, but luckily RVs can park in the boat trailer parking lot for $5 more, which was nearly empty!  It worked out perfectly because we were able to change and eat and rest in the camper just a short walk from the shore.

 

Dad and I blew up the inflatable kayak and paddled around the rocky areas.

The water is incredibly clear and bright, bright turquoise.  We met a retired fire chief from the area in the parking lot, and he said that it’s clean enough to drink straight from the lake!  Not sure if this is a prank locals play on tourists to get them to eat fish poop, but if I’d been thirsty enough, I probably wouldn’t have hesitated.  

There were three beaches at Sand Harbor, and I got out for a quick dip on one of the shallower sides.  It was brisk, but not that makes-your-joints-ache freezing cold.  We were told that it was unseasonably warm at mid-90s that weekend, so I wasn’t gonna waste that kind of weather and not get in the water.  There are huge schools of little fish and the occasional large trout that swim around the shoals.

We rejoined Mom and all lounged on the beach a bit, then headed to our home for the next three nights at Martis Creek Campground, a Corps of Engineers dam site on the outskirts of Truckee, CA.

I forgot to get a photo of our site, but we didn’t spend much time there since there was so much to do in the area, and the “lake” produced by the dam here is pretty...quaint.  

While Mom & Dad rested, I took the binoculars out for a walk around the campground in search of large mammals.  Or small mammals.  Or even a medium-sized bug!  Just an oriole or two, and some interesting plants.

We drove to a wildlife area across the street at sunset, but it seems all the wildlife there has also moved on to their summer homes elsewhere.  But the sunset made up for it!

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June 1-2 - Carson City

 

After Reno we moved on to the Carson City area, a strange land infested by enormous car/spider hybrids.

Our spot for the next two nights was at Carson Valley Inn & Casino RV Park, the only park we could find whose pool & hot tub wasn’t closed to some combination of COVID & COVID-related maintenance-supply-shortages.  I have to admit I strong-armed Mom & Dad into picking this place because I NEEDED that pool.  

The spots were nicely kept but we got one of the few that didn’t have a tree on both sides, turning the camper into a hot-box in the afternoons.  We improvised extra insulation by safety-pinning my sleeping bag onto the “dining room” window valence.

The pool and hot tub were 100% worth it!  We enjoyed them both evenings.  The pool had a tiled map of Nevada on the bottom.

The first night, we ended up getting free orange-cream slushes from the Sonic across the street from the manager who said we were the first nice people who’d come through that night (yikes!).  Who needs to win at the slots with that kind of luck?

The next day we headed to Carson City proper and made our first stop at the Nevada State Museum.  They had an incredible array of minerals, gemstones, and precious metals from Nevada and surrounding states...

Some models of prehistoric creatures both horrifying and awe-inspiring...

And an incredible taxidermy display!  I am a big taxidermy aficionado, but particularly of old bad taxidermy because the faces are HILARIOUS.  These works were too professional to be outright funny, but there were a few with very distinct personalities.

Moving into the History section, there was specimen that had been taxidermied-by-nature; a mummified cat found inside a tree trunk.

The history section was very thorough and had some great artifacts.

 

Antique souvenirs...

A shrine rescued from a boomtown Chinatown’s Joss Hall before it was demolished...

 

Law & Order necessities of the Old West...

An “unruly tooth” collection from a honest-to-god LADY dentist...

Furniture from her office...

A model of the “Vomit Comet” Bonanza Air plane that ferried in Vegas visitors in the early days of the Strip...

And early inventions of the “Father of the Slot Machine”...

There was also a replica of a ghost town and a silver mine built into the basement, all in the former U.S. Mint Building.

Down the street, we stopped in Cactus Jack’s Casino for lunch at a Indonesian-American diner smack-dab in the middle of the casino floor.  A very random combo that we found thanks to Yelp.  Their most popular item is the Beef Rendang Dog, which I got and did not regret!

We walked around the Western historic district for a bit, following a walking tour on Google Maps.  Some neat buildings but it was VERY hot, so we kept it short.  

Luckily in Nevada there’s always a casino to cool off in just a few steps away!

And there’s ALWAYS a Walmart nearby...ugggggggh