Lake Tahoe Weekend, July 2017

Every once in a while, it's fun to be a tourist in your own back yard. For us, that's Lake Tahoe. Steve made a little spending money doing a side project, and while it would have been fun to take a weekend trip to somewhere exotic like Maui, Cabo, or Cancun, a lack of direct flights from Reno made that unrealistic. Instead, we decided to become full blown South Lake Tahoe tourists for the first and possibly last time. We got a lake view suite at the Hard Rock Hotel, procured some Lake Tahoe paraphernalia, dined at unique restaurants, and experienced an exhilarating zip-lining adventure.

Dining in a relatively small lakeside tourist town means that there are many unique restaurants to choose from. The first night, we chose to reminisce on our one year anniversary trip to Greece by going to Artemis Lakefront Cafe. As tasty as it was, it did not compare to authentic Greek food. Nevertheless, it was nice to walk down memory lane. Then, we ventured to Baked Bear, which is a custom ice cream sandwich dealer. I use the word dealer because the likelihood of becoming addicted and consequently morbidly obese is dangerously high. This is a restaurant where you can have three different types of ice cream sandwiched between two cookies, different types of cookies, brownies, or a brownie on one side and a cookie on the other - there really are no rules. It's the wild west of ice cream sandwiches! Another restaurant we found that served eclectic vegetarian options was Freshies.

Since we were tourists, we thought it a must to patronize Heavenly resort. Tralina had never been in the Gondola at Heavenly before. We had seen advertisements for Heavenly's summer activities and thought that a zip-lining tour would be right up our alley. Zip-lining in highly regulated California had some noticeable differences from laid back Costa Rica. For example, gopros mounted on helmets are not allowed for some unknown safety reason, the gloves were more than just modified gardening gloves, there were two cables to each zip line instead of one, and it's mandatory to stop before getting to the end platform. Nevertheless, we completely enjoyed our experience. Tralina's favorite was the 1,530 foot long zip line that flies over a small lake and can clock in at up to 45 mph. For once in her recent life, she actually enjoyed the feeling of flying. Steve's favorite part was pushing away from the platform on the final rappel when he spun awkwardly in an arc, causing one of the guides to exclaim with surprise. It was exciting and surprising for Steve, too! We also spent some time on an intense ropes course that Steve fully enjoyed and Tralina not so much due to her well-developed fear of heights.

Overall, it was a fun trip. We enjoyed being Lake Tahoe tourists; the lake view from our room's balcony was visually scrumptious; the food was thoroughly palatable; and the zip-lining and ropes course were dreadfully exciting. And now, we must hang up our gear until the next Oxley Adventure.