TERRI'S TRAVELS: Lake Tahoe (again)

The end of summer called for just one more lake weekend in Tahoe.

Because apparently one in June and one in July wasn't enough.

I needed to finish it off with one in August, too.

I booked the flight totally last minute (like, the week of) and took off on Thursday afternoon.

Sat squished next to this guy...

...for three hours: one hour on the runway and two hours in the air.

Had an equally large man on the other side of me, too, so that was pretty awesome.

Or NOT.

Anyways, I landed about an hour late in Oakland, and Shan and Ryan and I took off for the 3 hour drive to Reno.

To break up the long road trip - and for a serious rush - we decided to go dumpster diving at an outlet behind a certain store that I won't name...

I had heard of this before, but never done it. So I dove right in. Literally. Right as Shannon was yelling, "Hey wait! There's glass and stuff in there! Be careful!!"

Too late, I was already squealing with excitement at my find:

I had to call Ryan in for back up to help me out. It was big and heavy!

Now, just what exactly we are going to do with a giant chandelier remains undecided. But either way, I was pretty pumped!

We continued on and got to Reno around 10:30 to pick up Ryan's brother from the airport. Thankfully he was delayed, too, so he didn't have to wait long.

It was late, but we were all hungry. So where does Shannon take us to eat in the biggest little city in Nevada?

Awful Awful Burger, of course.

(Side note: Why would you ever name a restaurant that??)

I don't even know how she heard of this place, but it was a total little dive in a back corner inside one of the casinos.

"I'll have the awful awful burger, please."

Probably not my best decision. I mean, look at all those fries!? I wasn't feeling too hot after that, but hey, when in Rome... right?

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After such a ~~healthy~~ awful dinner, we all needed a good workout Friday morning.

Thankfully, we were in a great spot for a long scenic run! (And by long, I mean like 3 miles.)

I showed everybody some of my new moves from workout class after the run.

Gotta get some muscle work in after the cardio!

20 push ups with a partner and a hand slap in between each one!

The original plan for the day was to go out on the boat, but it was way too windy for that. Waves and motion sickness do not mix well. We decided a hike and some beach time would be a better option.

After cleaning up and a quick stop for some sandwiches (where Shannon accidently left hers at the store!), we took off from Emerald Bay on the opposite corner of the lake for a hike along the Rubicon Trail to DL Bliss State Park.

Saw a cute little bear just up from the campsites at DL Bliss! Yikes!

Emerald Bay

The logistics were a little screwy with a 5 mile one way hike, but we decided to leave Shannon's car at Emerald Bay with the hopes that one of us would be able to score a ride hitchhiking back up to get it from DL Bliss when we were done cooling off on the beach...

Ready to start the hike!

Ry: "Wait, do I have something in my teeth?" Me: "Ya, let me get that for you."

I could probably post at least 100 pictures I took on this gorgeous hike, but for the sake of space, I'll try to narrow it down to five:

Random story: As we were walking along the trail, we ran in to a big family heading the opposite direction. They had their map out and asked us how far it was to Emerald Bay. After some discussion, we realized they had left their car at DL Bliss (where we were headed) and were hiking to Emerald Bay -- where we had left Shannon's car! So, yea...we traded car keys and phone numbers with strangers and said we would see them in a few hours! Transportation problem solved, haha!

The random families car keys and rental car at the beach waiting for us!

We made it to the beach just in time to catch some late afternoon rays, and relax on the sand after the hike. My foot was pretty sore and swollen, so the ice cold (literally, felt like ice) water of Tahoe felt great on it!

Catching the last of the afternoon sun on the beach

After a successful car switch with the nice family we met, we decided to continue driving on around the lake, through South Lake Tahoe, so we could see the whole lake. It's just a gorgeous drive, and doing it all the way in one day is fun!

Shannon and I were ~~pretty~~ really hungry by the time we got to South Lake, so we talked the boys in to stopping for sushi there. Buuuuut there was a wait. Of course. So after some debate, we decided to keep on going and just grab something back in Incline.

However, by the time we got to Incline, the sun was setting, and, well, you know how I feel about sunsets! We didn't even stop at the condo. Just kept driving to Crystal Bay and walked out to Speedboat Beach to watch it go down.

I was beyond hungry -- and cold and tired and thirsty -- by that point. I mean, it was almost 8 and we hadn't eaten since noon and had been out hiking all afternoon! That's waaaay too long for this girl to go with no food or water! Plus I was still in my swimsuit and shorts, which is not cool in the crisp evening temps in the mountains!

I tried to convince everyone to just drop me off at the house and let me sleep, but I didn't win. Ryan's brother was dead set on some fancy sushi place at Squaw -- another 30 minutes away. UGH. I was not a happy camper.

We had just made it out of Tahoe City when Shannon looked down and realized she just might not have enough gas to make it to Squaw and back. Siigghh....so we flipped it around and went back for some gas. As hungry a Shannon and I were at that point, running out of gas just might have done us in. Better safe than sorry, right?

After that little pit stop, we were just getting ready to turn off the highway for Squaw when I looked up, saw a big pile of fur in the road, and then felt a loud THUD-THUD...as it went directly under each tire.

Shannon FREAKED. I mean, like, for real. I was laughing so hard I couldn't breathe...but she was actually crying! She hadn't ever killed an animal before and was just distraught about it. (I still thought it was hilarious...)

I was pretty sure it was just a really fat raccoon, but when we got to Squaw and looked under the car -- Shannon had to check and make sure there wasn't still an animal under there -- we saw porcupine quills all over in her tires!!

She was seriously upset by this...but luckily, our waiter at the sushi place told her how he was glad there was one less porcupine on the roads. One recently got ahold of his dog and turned it in to something similar to this: