Lake Tahoe

I'm in Lake Tahoe. It’s so nice here that I have now decided to stay two extra days. It's too nice here to be able to leave yet. It's great to have the luxury of staying a few extra days without too much consequence. I’m here with my daughters and my dog, but not my husband.

So, here I am, with two daughters in a beautiful cabin at Lake Tahoe, eating, drinking, swimming, getting a massage, eating some more, drinking a little more, river rafting, hiking, biking, and oh yes, eating a lot! No gambling, though. We're at the North Shore of Tahoe, so we're still in California.

This is quite the healthy resort with gambling. It’s gorgeous. My favorite thing to do so far is to sit on the verandah and stare at the greenery and sky to refresh my soul. How earthy of me. I got a spa treatment (a massage) on Saturday, and sat in the pool area by myself for about an hour afterward. I realized that I probably need about six months of sitting in a rocker or nice comfy chair at a sanitarium somewhere up here to get back to who I would like to be. (confused? me, too)

This trip is the most relaxed I've been in many, many years. I'm staying with friends at their cabin, and they have just spoiled me rotten. The drive took 14 hours--we came up the 395 through Mammoth and we drove overnight to get here. I tried to get rooms in Bishop, but from Lone Pine through Lee Vining and even further north...I tried to stop at Mono Lake to sleep for a couple of hours, but there was something outside the car that my dog absolutely did not like. So, I listened to my "watch" dog...and moved on.

The wonderful thing about parking at Mono was that I looked out the window and in the moonless and starry night, I got to see not only our arm of the Milky Way, but watched some of the Perseids meteor shower. However I reluctantly moved on for about 20 minutes until I just couldn't drive any further, and found a safe place to park. The dog didn't mind this location, so I got to sleep for a couple of hours.

Daylight began to creep into my twilight sleep so I re-started my drive. I found my way to the road taking us into the Lake area, and stopped at beautiful Emerald Bay, where the girls, the dog and I got out, used the "facilities," ran around and took lots of pictures.

I didn't want to get all the way to our friends' place so early in the morning (it was about 7:am by this time), so we drove and drove around the lake and up into the mountains. We stopped again for more pictures, At about 8:30 we finally called the cabin and found our friends.

When we arrived at the cabin, the girls got acquainted with the other children, the dog went running around with the adorable yellow lab named Rosebud. My very dear friends introduced me to my new very dear friends, and they all told me to sit and rest, that I would not join in with any of the chores/duties, that I would go to the spa with the other two moms, relax, eat, drink and unwind from the 450 mile journey to the mountain paradise. And I did exactly that.

I leave tomorrow, and hope to finish this story, but there is one pc here and others await their turn. Bye for now.