Vacation 2009, Day Four: How Do You Feel About Butt Sex?

Yeah, sorry about that title, but its topical as I'll explain later.

Today was action packed, at least by my standards. We began the day with a journey to the Old Post Office Cafe in Carnelian Bay (CA) for breakfast. Kimberly and Terry had been there before, and after some twists and turns, we finally found it. Its locally owned, and has a wide variety of breakfast offerings all day. We both had great meals. I had a spinach omelette, while Kimberly had oatmeal and biscuits. The manager, with whom we visited, said the building used to be an actual post office. He told us the "season" pretty much dies out later in September, and picks up to some extent in December and January. We asked why there's not many chain restaurants or other stores in the Lake Tahoe area. He responded that they can't withstand the profit drop during the off-season. That's a real advantage to being local; you can have a business model that doesn't require an even 12 month revenue stream.

We put the top down and drove to several spots along the lake searching for a place to rent a kayak and follow the shore for awhile. We saw a couple of places in Kings Beach, but were hoping to rent something further west in Nevada at Sand Harbor beach. Sand Harbor apparently has a more interesting coastline, but unfortunately, they didn't rent kayaks there. The drive was excellent, however, on this crystal clear day. The water was a lot calmer this morning than when I went to Kings Beach on Sunday night after getting into town. probably because there wasn't much wind.

So we were pretty optimistic about having a calm ride along the shoreline. We got changed and packed our day gear and headed back to Kings' Beach, where Kunu from Forgetting Sarah Marshall rented us a tandem kayak. Kimberly made a huge deal that we will not capsize after Kunu warned us not to take our packs with us because we might capsize, and no sooner did we get in than I started paddling too hard and capsized us. Right off the bat. Call me Ishmael. We both went in the lake, which fortunately at that spot was shallow enough for us to stand. Unfortunately, all our gear also went in, including my camera and my nice "moleskin" notebook I use throughout the day to make notes for this blog, as well as Kimberly's cell phone. For reasons unbeknownst to me, Kimberly thought it was the funniest thing ever, and probably still hasn't stopped laughing about it. Which is better than I would have behaved if my cell phone stopped working like hers did (temporarily at least). We eventually righted ourselves and spent the next hour and half or so going up and down the coast. As you can see on the flickr site, Lake Tahoe is incredibly blue, and incredibly clear. We read at one of the state parks that 100 years ago, the lake was so clear that objects as much as 100 feet deep were visible from the surface. By 2000, however, that reduced to 90 feet. Nonetheless, Tahoe, especially when one is on it, has about the bluest water I've ever seen. We went as far as some rocky outcroppings near the Cal-Neva resort on the state line before turning around. We picked up a bit of wind on the way back that kept pushing us out into the lake, but made it back without further incident. Happily, my camera survived intact and I was able to take some great pictures. On the other hand, my notebook was soaked, and most of the writing was obscured.

Kunu and his buddies recommended Jason's on the water for lunch, so after stowing our waterlogged gear and trying to clean up a bit, we trudged the couple of blocks over to Jason's. Basically, its a burger place with patio tables right next to the beach (and with a great lake view). We both pulled out all our money and put it on the table to dry in the strong sun. With all that money on the table it looked like we were playing craps. Anyway, two odd looking guys at the table next to us were engrossed in a deep, deep theological conversation, which was obviously irritating Kimberly more and more. Hence, I asked her "how do you feel about butt sex?" to break the tension. And it did.

After lunch, we went to the condo and got cleaned up, then headed to hike the Spooner Lake trail, east of the big lake. The trail is in the Lake Tahoe State Park, and is a 1.6 mile loop around Spooner Lake. The area was the site of extensive logging operations in the 1800s, and has been reclaimed and converted into parkland. Its used for skiing in winter, and hiking and mountain biking in the summer. The hike was pretty gentle in the afternoon sun. In the hour we spent, we saw lots of wildflowers, as well as evergreens and aspens. The aspens are starting to turn color-evetually they'll look magnificent, with white bark and gold leaves. There were also more animals on this hike than yesterday's from Brockway Summit.

We then got cleaned up again, and went to the Hyatt Resort for a drink and to watch the sunset. Kimberly had been there before and was really excited to show it to me. We discovered, however, that there was a private party and the place wasn't open to the public. Kimberly of course would never let something simple like that stand between her, the sunset and a glass of wine, so we became "squatters" on the patio and Kimberly made friends with the bartender (Travis) and got that glass of zinfandel after all. It was quite impressive actually. Its been a couple of years since I've seen a display of gentle audacity in the face of rules like that. I know few who can pull it off (and they're all southern women of course). On the patio we were treated to a truly spectacular sunset, with the oranges, reds and purples reflecting off the clear water in Lake Tahoe. We took tons of pictures. Some vaguely Eastern European couple sat near us, and the man insisted on taking our picture. Hopefully you can spare time to check out the flickr site for these pictures. I asked the group next to us where they got their drink from (before Kimberly befriended the bartender), and they asked me where my accent is from. No one's ever asked me that before. But I answered that they were the ones with the accent. Cause I'm quick like that. Sidebar: Steel Magnolias is on TV right now (I can't be bothered to get up and see what else is on). Do these people have the worst Louisiana accents ever? It doesn't get much worse, except of course everyone in Gone With the Wind other than Vivien Leigh and Elizabeth Taylor in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Julia Roberts grew up in Georgia and had no excuse. This hurts my ears.

After leaving, we returned home and Kimberly made an excellent lamb with garlic sauce (including salad with goat cheese and made from scratch panna cotta) for dinner, while I worked out. It was another excellent meal. I ate too much, of course, which was easy to do.

Tomorrow-Mount Rose and Tahoe Meadows hiking.