I have been wanting to drive up to Lake Tahoe, but I have not wanted to go alone. Willie was more than happy to make a day out of this little adventure, bless his heart.
As we drove up Highway 50, I was telling Willie all I knew about Lake Tahoe. I was kind of surprised how accurate I was when we found this little sign. He was in the passenger seat and took this first shot when he saw the lake for the first time. The view really is quite stunning.
Coming up on South Lake Tahoe...
Entering California. I found it interesting that there is no agricultural check point. Fruit and veggie smugglers could have a field day on this route.
We found the Bottle Shop just as it had been since 1971.
The Pioneer Inn looked small and quaint. It seemed much larger as a child.
We parked right in front of the cabin. It was vacant, so I was able to look around.
This is the bedroom side of the house that used to look out over a wide open empty lot, now there is a big motel on the other side to flank the Pioneer Inn leaving the cabin in the valley of some weird motel canyon.
This is the kitchen side, and I was pleased to see a side door. As I have been writing about those months in the cabin I have questioned my memory and my description of the property. Everything inside was exactly as I remembered. But now there is a nice deck out back and a fence marking the property line.
I tried to take a few in the windows, but the reflection was pretty bad. It is funny how small this place looked to me now. I tried to see a man and five children living here, but it was too far out of my realm of reality, even though I know it happened once upon a time.
For some reason there were padlocks on the bedroom doors, which is kind of hard to see because of the reflection in the window pane, but somehow felt appropriate to me. I wondered if the toilet flushed and the shower worked.
After saying goodbye to the cabin, wishing I had thought to bring sage for burning, I wanted to go to Harvey's, which has been fixated in my head as my favorite casino in South Lake Tahoe. Probably because this was the first casino I was ever in and would have been quite spectacular to a ten year old child. Willie was pleased with the inside and took this shot while I used the bathroom.
We hung out at Harvey's for a short time, enough for me to know there is not a gambling bone in Willie's body. We put a dollar in a penny machine and Willie was thrilled to cash out when he had doubled his money. I talked him into putting his winnings in a quarter machine and in two spins he hit for $17 and cashed out, refusing to put another dime in. We laughed the whole time.
Willie packed a lunch for us and we looked for a place on the lake shore to picnic, but everywhere we went they charged $8 to park, which we refused to pay. We cruised along Highway 50 turning into neighborhoods to see what we could find. No lake access, but we did find Ray Way, which made me smile for obvious reasons.
We finally ditched the lake shore idea and headed up to the view point we stopped at on the way in. Turns out off of the highway there was a little trail, some nice benches in the shade and bathrooms, score! Here I am munching happily on my current favorite food, granny smith apples and fresh ground almond butter that they sell at Winco.
A few other people wandered into the area. All of us had cameras at the ready, so we took pictures of them and they offered to take one of us as well. Willie, much like Jenn, has a hard time not goofing off for the camera.
Lake Tahoe, forever beautiful, now cleansed of tragedy for me, will always be one of my favorite places on the planet.
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