On our last full day here, Bob and I decided to go for another run. Our plan is that we’ll get adjusted to running at this altitude, and then when we get back to sea level and full oxygen we’ll be super-athletes. I’m not sure if the less than two miles we managed today will do the trick, but time will tell.
To be fair, we did some hiking as well. Some very STEEP hiking as a matter of fact. We ran the 1.4 miles down to the Stateline district to check out Van Sickle Bi-State Park. (Bi-state! Get it?) As you may recall, Stateline is a very bustling district full of shopping centers and bars and casinos — not a place you’d expect to find a park. But right there behind the Target parking lot, the development abruptly stops and ahead of you is just steeply sloping ground covered with pines and rocks. (On the main trail in, the Heavenly gondola travels above you, heading for the top of the mountain. You can ride the gondola up in the summer for fantastic views, but it costs $80!)
We walked a couple mile loop trail, which took us quite a bit up the hill to a panoramic view of the lake (with the casinos rising in front in one section, in sharp contrast to the untouched shoreline on most of the rest). Even the portions of the trail with no view were very pleasant, with tall pines, wildflowers, and the crisp mountain air that we appreciate so much. (We didn’t come anywhere close to the top. Shortly after the turnoff for our loop trail, the mountainside seemed to become essentially vertical. If you continue in that direction, you can get to the Tahoe Rim Trail, a 165-mile trail that circumnavigates the lake, from up in the mountains that surround it. We did not go that way.)
On the way back we managed to run for part of the way, but eventually accepted defeat and slowed to a stroll. We were able to walk the last section back along the water, through the beach of the next-door marina and onto our own resort. Nadia and Lanie were still in their pajamas, watching Harry Potter. (All eight movies are available on the TV here, and they have made it their goal to get through them all. Last night, they had gotten up through the seventh one. Bob and I had gotten a little hooked and ended up watching the last one while they were at the Hozier concert.)
By the time we’d showered and eaten, it was almost time for Zoe to get off work. We decided to have a relaxing day today, meaning we didn’t want to get in the car. The only wish list item that we hadn’t done yet was paddle-boarding, and we conveniently found that we could rent the boards at the next-door marina. Zoe, Lanie, and I took them out for an hour from the beach next door. The lake here is pretty choppy, so it was a bit of a challenge, but we were proud that all of us managed to avoid falling off. (This was more than could be said for many of the other tourists renting paddle boards.) The water is so clear here that it’s hard to estimate depth — even a long way out, the sandy bottom looked close enough to touch.
After our paddle we went back to our own beach for a swim — we’ve found that counterintuitively, the water here, on the open lake, is considerably warmer than the water at Sand Harbor or Emerald Bay. We figure it must be because the lake is shallow for a long way out here, and maybe the snowmelt streams coming down from the mountains empty into those other areas. But it’s still a bit chilly, so afterwards we spent a little time in the lakeside hot tub. We haven’t taken too much advantage of our resort amentities so far this week, so we’re trying to cram a bit of that in. Bob meanwhile walked down to the used bookstore we’d seen the other day, to stock up on reading material for our flight home.
By the time we got back to the condo, it was time for apertivos — we still had a bottle of wine and a fair amount of snacks from Grocery Outlet Bargain Market. In an effort to use up some of the groceries we’d bought, we decided to make nachos for dinner — and in compensation for not spending any money at restaurants all day, we acceded to Nadia’s ongoing campaign to return to the Trapped in Tahoe escape room (which is also conveniently in walking distance). We found The Estate to be slightly more challenging than Sector 9, but we still managed to emerge victorious without using any hints.
On our walk back home, we began to hear distant rumblings of bass. As we got closer to our condo, we realized we could hear the second night of the Hozier concert. We walked out on the pier at our resort and could pretty clearly hear the music playing and the roar of the crowd, as the sound traveled across the lake from Stateline. Listening to a few songs while watching the stars was the perfect way to end the day.
