Week 58 Lake Tahoe, Sausalito & San Francisco again, USA

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After the excessive stimuli of the senses in Yosemite we returned to San Francisco for a couple more days and did the remaining touristy things like riding a cable car up and down the steep streets and mooch around the high end department stores like Saks and Nordstrom, where we didn’t buy anything but did visit their lovely loos. If you get caught short in Union Square you have a massive choice for a pee, including the 7th floor of Niketown. I guess that is a true sign of middle age when I expect my readers to care about where to take a leak.

We wanted to go to Lake Tahoe for a few days so rented a car and Joy bravely took the first turn at the wheel to get us out of the city. We were both nervous about driving - me as I had not driven anything for over a year and Joy because it was an automatic and she had never driven on the opposite side of the road before. We had some issues with the sat-nav but a nice guy at the rental office changed the unit for us and gave us a tip that when you park on the roads in San Francisco you must "curb your wheels"- turn your wheels into the curb when facing downhill and away from the curb facing uphill, or you get a $100 fine and the traffic police are hot on issuing those fines. We were shocked how the cost of the car hire added up, so I need to research how to get better deals - in other words I will ask my brother who is a whiz at finding those kinds of bargains.

The first half of the journey towards Lake Tahoe was uneventful and we swapped drivers at a food break which was where the sat-nav died. We tried everything we could to revive it but it had flatlined. It later turned out that a fuse had blown in the car and although there was a green light on the cable, it was not getting a charge through the cigarette lighter port and when the battery ran out, so did our directions. Oh well, back to the old fashioned way of maps and asking locals for directions. Nope, the first local we tried when we reached the middle of South Lake Tahoe town sent us the wrong way and gave Joy a large-scale map of Nevada - we were on the California side and needed a street map. Luckily just before it got totally dark and our humour failed, another guy pointed us to our hotel.

It was a great choice of lodging, being reasonably priced with a large room overlooking the lake, but as we were on the ground floor at road level we saw more cars than boats. We later negotiated an extension and managed to move up a floor, which gave us a much better view of the water. The State line between California and Nevada runs right through the middle of the lake and the gambling laws are very different on each side, so a row of casinos starts immediately on crossing into Nevada. We had based ourselves at the bottom end of the lake in the town that straddles the border but had arrived in a bit of a limbo season, after the summer crowds with sunny hot weather and warm lake water, but just before the winter season with its vast array of snow and ice sports. All of the locals were praying for snow but our two little counter-pleas were heard and the snow started the day after we left the area.

Luckily the weather was lovely at the beginning of our trip so on the first day we took it easy and didn’t stray too far. We wasted half the day at the car rental place getting the sat-nav issue fixed then checked out the town, did some shopping and ended up in a bar with a wonderful view of the Lake sipping loaded hot chocolates where they put a shot of flavoured rum in it. We ate in the restaurant behind the hotel so didn’t have far to get home, which is just as well as the nights were dark and bitterly cold.

The next day we drove up the West side of the Lake and checked out the small villages and constant great vistas on the California side. We paused at a lookout to view Emerald Bay that was carved by glaciers, has striking coloured waters and the cute little Fannette Island in the middle with a stone teahouse built by a rich female philanthropist in the early 1930’s to entertain her friends - at over 6,000 feet above sea level I guess they were having high tea (hee hee). We watched as one of the paddleboats did a circuit of the island then we continued along the only major road that runs around the Lake, stopping every so often for a kodak moment or to walk a forest path to the edge of the water as the views were brilliant. We had been aiming for a restaurant that I had read about overlooking the water, but it was closed for a wedding. We wandered down to the shoreline for a look just as the bride and her zillion bridesmaids were having their photos taken on the dock -she also had a piper in full kilt and regalia.

The next day was wet and cloudy and pretty chilly so we got up late and had a leisurely breakfast and did our laundry before heading to the quay to catch the 1.30pm paddleboat, the Tahoe Queen. The lake is the third deepest in North America at 1,600 feet and when its bright and sunny the water is so clear you can see the bottom along the edges up to 100 foot depth. The dull weather limited our photographs but the 2.5 hour trip was fun anyway and the boat was only half full, which meant that there were plenty of the high wing-back chairs covered in cow hide to sit on downstairs when it got too cold or wet on the top deck - we loved those chairs and sat in two right by a big window sipping coffee with whipped cream and eating chocolate chip cookies. We circled Fannette Island in Emerald Bay and wondered how many people were taking our photo from the lookout.

Luckily the sun was out a bit the following morning so we decided to do a full circuit of the Lake starting with the Eastern, Nevada bank. We stopped at the famous Cal-Neva Casino that was once owned by Frank Sinatra and was the playground of the rich and famous in its hey day in the 1960’s. The State line runs through the middle of the hotel and people used to move from one side of the bar to the other to take advantage of longer drinking hours in Nevada. Its a bit sad now and looks very neglected but we did see the border line painted on the swimming pool bottom and sneaked into one of the grand function rooms that was being dressed for Halloween - yes it was a bit early but in the USA they seem to have a lengthy build up to Halloween.

After lunch we went to the lookout at Mount Rose midway along the Northern shore that gave a far-reaching view of most of the lake, even though its was a bit cloudy and the Lake waters were not as blue as when the sun shines. In addition to various stops to admire the wonderful views, we headed up to Squaw Valley where the Winter Olympics were held in 1960 and where there was a lot of Autumn colour in the trees. We were disappointed that none of the cable cars or chair lifts were running either here or in South Lake Tahoe, as we would have loved to ride them to the mountain lookouts, but everything was closed for maintenance as they prepared for the imminent snow season. On the way back down the Californian side we parked by a stream and followed our noses and the crowds of people with huge cameras on tripods to watch the spawning salmon. They turn red during the spawning season and there were thousands of them all facing upstream. This is a favourite haunt of the bears at this time of year and apparently they had been here every day that week feeding on the fish, but we had no more luck spotting them than we had in Yosemite. It was really interesting to see, but the place stank of dead and rotting fish so we didn’t linger too long.

Lake Tahoe is a beautiful place and has masses to offer visitors in every season, but we had to move on as we wanted to visit the area to the North of San Francisco before returning to the city. The drive back was uneventful and we checked into a nice hotel in a little town called Corte Madera and dumped the bags. We headed out to visit nearby Sausalito, a very pretty town with posh and expensive properties covering the steep hills overlooking the Bay with views over to the city of San Francisco. Well normally they have views but when we got there Sausalito was in bright sunshine but there was a solid wall of white fog sitting in the middle of the Bay. We parked up in an extortionately expensive car park and walked along the seafront for a while, watching as boats disappeared into the fog and the occasional huge container ship eerily appeared from the gloom. We also heard frequent deep fog horns that echoed and resonated all around us.

We wandered the exclusive boutiques and had a mooch around a very pretty Christmas shop before heading to the Marina. There were thousands of boats there of all types and sizes with some truly stunning wooden sailboats. The sun was still shining and the reflections on the water of all the rigging was lovely, but we saw a bank of fog start to roll over the top of the hill behind town so decided we should leave and have dinner back at our hotel. Our planned visit to Muir Woods to see the giant redwoods had to be cancelled too, which is good as its a perfect excuse to return sometime in the future.

The next day we drove back to San Francisco, returned the hire car and checked into a posh hotel near Union Square as it was Joy’s last night. It was sad to see her leave but she escaped just at the right time as the weather turned nasty and we had two full days of unrelenting rain, covering the city in an inch of water each day turning some of the steep streets into rivers. The fog stayed too and it was pretty dark and dismal. I braved the weather and streets running with water to change hotels and moved to a much cheaper one that was still in the Union Square area, then paddled through the puddles to go to the theatre to see Shopping the musical. It was very well written, the lyrics of the 25 short songs were witty and fun and the cast of four plus a piano payer were just right in the tiny basement stage of the Shelton Theatre, giving an intimate atmosphere. I enjoyed it very much and had a very nice evening.

Joy was not keen on wine but as you will have worked out by now I love the stuff, so I left my visit to the Wine Country for my last few days when I was alone again, booking a full day tour that visited wineries in both Sonoma and Napa. It rained all day but it didn’t matter as we were inside for most of the time and rows of vines are not much more interesting in sun than they are dripping wet. After stopping at two very good places in Sonoma (Madonna Estate and Nicholson Ranch) and trying some damned fine vino, we were dropped in the centre of Napa for our own choice of lunch venue. I went to the highly recommended Bistro Jeanty that serves fairly traditional French cuisine and indulged myself with a lovely pork casserole followed by tarte tatin with gooey caramelised apples. In the afternoon we went to Sutter Home which is a label I have bought in the UK and tasted some very good wines that were only available from the cellar door. The trip back to the city took just over 2 hours and I think everyone except the driver snoozed but I woke just before making my fifth crossing of the Golden Gate Bridge.

The good thing is I have caught up on my blogs but the BAD thing is the next one is the last of this series. Sadly I am leaving for my last stop on this epic Round the World trip. I am off to Las Vegas to see a few shows and to bet a VERY meagre amount in the hope that I will have a freak win that will pay for another 13 months of travel. I don’t think $20 is likely to give that kind of return though. I will also be in the craziest city on Earth for the mad weekend of Halloween.

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