Blogs from Lake Tahoe, California, United States, North America

The West was settled after the rise of the automobile, and designed with the car in mind. It was thus with a certain satisfaction that I pointed my little red car (a Chevy of course) north on Interstate 5 from San Francisco. Actually it wasn’t that little a car at all – a nice estate size in British terms – but in comparison to every car on the road it was. American cars are huge. Most are so big it requires considerable upper arm strength even to haul yourself into the passenger seat of one. I’d justify it in terms of the harsh winters here, but you don’t get snow in San Francisco. As I headed north, the landscape changed around me, from the winding roads and Pacific vistas of Marin County, to the golden hills ... read more

Grover Hot Springs has lots of stuff to do for all ages; rocks to climb and to watch stars by at night, trails to hike, trees to sit under with a glass of wine during the warm afternoon, a stream to play in and, of course, the pools. Kids, older and younger, have had fun walking, sleeping in late in the tent, sitting at the meadow, reading, dancing on the rocks and talking. Clayton, Jen and their friends hiked out to the waterfall this morning 1-1/2 miles. We’d wanted to hike there but big kids weren’t awake yet and we didn’t know about walking with Zaya. When the group of friends came back they reported that the hike was not easy for kids and seemed long. So we were glad to be so lazy. I made ... read more

Our run of luck, or rather no luck, has passed on to Clayton and Jen. Apparently their blow-up mattress deflated in the night so that their butts were dragging on the ground, Zoey woke up at 10p.m. and screamed until 2a.m. however I didn’t hear any of it, and then Zoey head butted Jen giving Jen a horrible black eye and swollen cheek. Poor Jen was in pain and all of them were so tired by morning. We did tease Jen about getting into fights, Nate, Bekki, Elias and Justin were to arrive early this morning we thought so we were waiting, leaving notes on where we’d be, that sort of thing. Since there is no cell phone signal at all we could not rely on text to keep in touch. We are roughing it!! Kids ... read more