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Published: August 6th 2007
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We had made lots of plans for memorial day weekend.
We planned to go to Hawaii originally.
But as usual Balaji had some important release at his work, so we had to drop the plan.
We just did not plan anything untill May 2nd week.
We realized that time is running by and we would not get good deals and started thinking about where to go. As Balaji could not afford taking leave
(that is the very reason why we cancelled Hawaii:-(), we had to plan for some place nearby.
Yosemite and Lake Tahoe were on my list of must visit places. It is always true that when we have something more beautiful and amazing so close to us we do not take effort to visit that place but we would have visited all other places on earth:-) It is pure procastination.
This time as we had made no big plans, I took this oppurtunity to suggest Lake Tahoe, Yet another relaxing place(well it could get wild with water sports, depending on peoples' taste).
Balaji also got interested in Lake Tahoe. I was sure this is the best time of year to visit Tahoe where we could see glimpse of snow
and fresh green trees at the same time!!!
We did not want to drive this time. We wanted some rest and fresh time at Tahoe.
We started looking for deals.
After looking for different deals, we settled with the following Itenerary
26th May -> saturday -> Morning 6.30 Fly to Sacremento
Drive from Sacremento to Lake Tahoe
28th May-> evening Drive back from Tahoe to sacremento
29th May-> Early morning -> Fly back to SNA orange airport.
This was a relaxing itenerary indeed. We did not want to strain ourselves wanting for more leave by the end of the vacation.
I packed everything the previous night and got our camera kit ready as I expected to take some decent shots there.
We got up fresh on saturday morning, kept our car in the airport parking area and headed to the airport through shuttle service.
We had booked through Aloha airlines. The journey was comfortable.
The climate was wonderful. We reached sacremento airport.
Having been in LA and surroundings for a while, sacremento seemed to be very small, sparsely populated and country side like:-) But Balaji told me it had reasonably good population and big establishments...May be the lesser
crowd was because of the vacation.
All the US state capitals are less popular.It seems to be a good policy by the government, me says:-)
We got a free upgrade to a mini van from Dollar at Sacremento airport.
We took the car and headed our way to Lake tahoe.!!!
The drive was for 2 hrs.Not bad...We grabbed some cookies from safeway for our breakfast.
As we entered the Lake Tahoe area, fresh greeneries and a hilly terrain welcomed us.
The environment was so good and full of fresh nature...:-) Pine trees dominated the area.
As soon as we entered Tahoe area, we came across a creek by the side. It was a glimpse of what was in store for us inside. I got so excited seeing the creek.
I captured it with my lens.
We then proceeded to find our Motel, Super8.
It was not difficult to locate it. It was right on the way.We reached the motel by 12.30.
We refreshed ourselves and then proceeded for food!!!
We saw a thai restaurant before and we decided we would have our lunch there.
It was an authentic thai cuisine. We had a goodlunch.
The lake was just across the
Super 8 motel.
Our plan for the first day was to relax on the Lake tahoe area near by and do people watching.
We sat on a bench on the river bed and talked about nothings.
The evening went by so fast.
We then moved to another area were people took off for Parasailing and jet skiing.
It was nice to watch people doing water sports with Icecream in my hand. I badly wanted to go for para-sailing. Balaji was so adamant that he would not do it.
I thought I would go alone while he would be on the boat.
Unfortunately, I was underweight to go alone and I was not interested to go with anyone else.
So I had to reserve it for future:-(
We returned back to Motel, had a good Indian food at Taj Mahal Restaurant. The pain part was the wait time. It was so crowded that we had to wait for 2 hours to get seated.
We were somehow particular on Indian food, so we did not mind waiting.
By this time, the icecream started to work its way through my throat and I started getting throat irritation.
We had a good night's sleep.
The plan for the next day was to make a trip around the entire 70 odd miles of Lake Tahoe.
We started from our Motel.
There were few vista points on our way, but our first major stop was Emerald Bay.It was an amazing place.
It looked like a poster. Greenish blue waters, with a small island in the middle.
We spent sometime on the Emerald Bay vista point.
We went to Eagle falls which was close to half a mile hike.
It was indeed a fierceful small falls.
We did not hike till the Eagle lake because of lack of time.
We proceeded our trip seeing lots of vista points in between. The map provided by the Visitors center of south Lake tahoe was very helpful.
we stopped for lunch in one of the few restaurants available near North LAke Tahoe.
The food was horrible to me because they had few vegetarian options that too not so tasty....
We managed somehow and then proceeded towards kings beach in North Lake Tahoe.
I was so amazed by some of the beached along the way.Few of them require you to buy a ticket.The ticket could ideally be used in 3 or
4 beaches.
As they are private they are secluded and so calm. It is indeed a relaxing place.
By 4 we hit Zehpyr's cove, our last vista point before we reach our starting point.
I had a coffee @ motel on return.We refreshed and thought of going west to see sun set.
But by the time we decided and went to Zephyr's cove, the Sun had already set to an extent behind the mountains.So it was not so spectacular but I managed to get a shot.
After sunset it was almost 8.30 and we went to Tajmahal again knowing that it would be so crowded again. They have only one chef managing the show and that is why it took time.
I guess they get only seasonal crowd and that is why they did not invest much on chefs.
I dont know. I had very little food because my throat started bothering me more.
After dinner we reached hotel by 10.30.
We had a good night's sleep.
THe next day we had plans of going in Tahoe queen and balaji wanted to go to the Spa which was part of the Super 8 motel.
We got up late, browsed
internet for a while(Super 8 has wireless internet service) and he started to the Spa. I was downloading pictures and seeing them.
By the time we came back, it was lunch time.
We went to TajMahal again for lunch.
We had the Tahoe queen ferry to Emerald bay at 2.30 in the noon.
When we went there by 12.45 we were told that there was an issue with the Tahoe queen and we were asked to go to the MS Dixie that starts from Zephyr's cove.
We went to Zephyr's cove and got the ticket.
The ferry started by 2.45.
It was a 2 hr ferry.
It was good with some history from captain and some amazing closer views of the mountains and the water.
We got back by 4.45 and we started our way back to Sacremento as we had to catch our return flight from Sacremento early next morning.
We reached Motel 6 in Sacremento by 7.15.
We checked in and went to the near by Denny's for Dinner.
We finished dinner and slept early as we had to get up early the next day, return the car and catch our flight.
We reached home the next day
morning, I caught fever and could not go to office for 3 days:-(
But it was a good trip and we would definitely like to visit Lake Tahoe again.
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Shobana Balaji
Yeah..There would be a next time!!!
Yeah... As I mentioned, we did not do much in this trip as we had so less a time. We wanted this trip to be a bit relaxed..... We would hopefully do it the next time:-) As far as parasailing, I should somehow convince Balaji next time:-) I read your blog on ur Tahoe visit...:-) Noted all interesting things:-) Thanks for ur suggestions! Do update more on your Alaska trip:-)