Advertisement
Reflections
Fallen Leaf LakeLake Tahoe is magnificent and in our opinion one of the loveliest lakes in America. If you enjoy nature you will enjoy the Lake Tahoe area. Hours of hiking trails beckon; we passed many bikers, motorcyclist, boaters and kayakers along the way. Summer or winter Lake Tahoe is an outdoor playground.
As the old saying goes, “you can’t go home again.” Those of you who know us well might inquire, “they don’t have a home, do they?” And they are right to a point, as we have lived in many places over the years. But the truth is that each of these places has indeed been our home, from the shores of Cape Cod to the mountains of Wyoming, to the beaches of Florida, to the green Northwest, to the present day digs of northern California. Each of these places has represented home to us in a fashion, as we have lived there for more than a few months and sometimes even years. And so, after more than 16 years, we have returned to beautiful South Lake Tahoe.
We worked in South Lake Tahoe during the winter of 1995-96, lured to
the snowy playground by a travel nursing contract. We thought we had landed a job in Portland Oregon-- it fell through so off to Tahoe we headed. We arrived in early December and remained through the following March, which is prime ski season in these parts. The lure of the powdery snow beckons many a skier, and we were hired to fix those unfortunate few who managed to take a wrong turn or took a nasty spill. Frankly, this never really materialized, and they had us working on other kinds of patients in the Barton Memorial hospital operating room---but that’s okay as we found ourselves living in a playground in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
These past few months have found us absent from TravelBlog as we have concentrated on academia, but now it’s time to get back to what we feel we do well, which is move around and have a good look. And what better way than to take a weekend and re-visit the beautiful Lake Tahoe area and our friend Amy Isenhart and her husband Bob. We worked with Amy 16 years ago and it was grand to catch up.
Amy and
Bob took us on a tour of the Tallac Historic Site, which included the estate of “Lucky” Baldwin, an uber-wealthy entrepreneur from the turn of the last century, we took a short hike to Fallen Leaf Lake and also stood delightfully near Echo Lake. We found the vistas stunning, as we were last here in 1995 when snow was all around. What we discovered is that it is equally beautiful in late May, with spring flowers blooming and balmy temperatures. Although this winter was a mild one in terms of temperatures and snowfall, Mother Nature can be fickle, as the previous year it was much colder and snowed into the month of June. We felt fortunate to arrive during a great stretch of weather with the temps in the upper 60’s (20 degrees centigrade) with just a hint of a breeze. All in all, a stellar late spring day near one of the most beautiful lakes in the States, if not the world. The deep blue color of the lake and the clarity of the water are a sight to see.
We also found the place where we lived (1995) during this assignment on Beecher Ave. Now,
Merry Jo & Amy
Fallen Leaf Lake we’ve lived in more than a few places over the years, as our family would testify. The running joke was that you needed to write our address in pencil as it changes so often. We have all the addresses written down mind you, but the problem here is that the addresses are some 2500 miles away stored in a box. So….we had to rely on our memories to find the place. We drove around some and then decided that the best way would be to retrace our path from the hospital to our temporary home. This proved to be most useful. We turned down a street that we thought might take us to the general neighborhood, then realized that we needed to turn right, then right again, and voila….there it was. The house we stayed in had been made available to our travel company as the owner was an older woman who apparently loaded up her trailer each fall and headed for the Mexican peninsula to wait out the winter. We had spoken with her once, but never actually met her.
As we parked in front of the house, we noticed a man waxing his truck next
Dave & MJ
Fallen Leaf Lake door and struck up a conversation. This proved to be most beneficial, as he had lived there many years and had known the woman fairly well. He told us that she had passed two years back, and that her daughters were sorting out the place little by little. He was fond of the woman and had more than a glass of wine or two over the years. We described our time there and then took a quick walk to the backyard, which looked almost the same, minus the snow when we were there. Memories flooded back and we were transported back briefly to a time when we lived there……good times.
The winter of 95-96 when we lived in Tahoe it seemed liked it snowed everyday and thus Dave shoveled daily. We decided to “google” the snow fall information and learned that in December of that year there was 24 inches of snow, January 106 inches, February 72 and 38 inches in March. No wonder Dave was eager to head to a beach vacation when it was over.
It was great to revisit this time in our lives, albeit briefly. Perhaps you can’t go home
again, but you can hold on to the memories, as they cannot be taken from you.
We have included a few photos from this weekend in Tahoe as well as a few from 1995-96. Lake Tahoe Facts 2
nd deepest Lake in America—501 meters or 1645 feet
10
th deepest Lake in the World
22 miles long (35 km) and 12 miles wide (19 km)
For all our scuba diver friends… the visability is 70feet (21 meters) and the water temp is 40 to 50 degrees F(4.5 to 10 C) during February and March and warms to 65 to 70 degrees F (18 to 21 C) during August and September. Below 600 feet it is a constant 39 degrees F(4.0 C)
If you are looking for a good local breakfast stop please try The Red Hut Waffle Shop.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.092s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 16; qc: 43; dbt: 0.0495s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Jo Trouble
Jo McCarthy
Welcome back!
Congrats on finishing with the studies :-) What a stunning playground, a perfect place to enjoy some post-study time out. The powdery snow sounds tempting.....