Truckee: Cruising Lake Tahoe

This is the penultimate post in the series about our visit to see our friends Kelley and Mark in Truckee, CA. On Tuesday, our final full day in Truckee, Kelley had arranged for a ski patrol friend of hers, Dan, to show us around the lake on his boat, which he rents out for cruises. All we had to do was pick up the gas bill. Deal!

Blue Skies and Glassy Water: A Phenomenal Day on Lake Tahoe

We were on vacation, so we were not really feeling pressed to be anywhere at any given time. Still, we had a nominal departure at Lake Tahoe at 11am so Ann and I arrived at Mark and Kelley's around 10:15. Kelley was in the middle of putting together her delicious sandwiches (baguette, Boursin, genoa salami, and fresh spinach), so I jumped in and helped her spread the slightly ornery Boursin on the bread while she assembled the sandwiches.

Meanwhile, Mark was packing the lunch goods and drinks into the cooler. I guess that we got away from their house bound for the lake about 20 minutes late, but I felt like we were on perfect Truckee time, 11am being more of a suggestion rather than a plan. As we piled into Mark's truck and headed south towards the lake, we could see that the day was developing beautifully, with bluebird skies, no wind to speak of, and glorious October temperatures.

After witnessing the whitecaps on Donner Lake yesterday, I was a touch apprehensive about a cold and damp boat ride on an uncomfortably choppy lake. No need to worry. Today's weather was turning out to be the most spectacular ever! We would have phenomenal weather and the vast lake all to ourselves in this post-tourist season when most boats are dry-docked for the winter. Spectacular is much too lame a word to describe our experience.

Our original embarkation point was to be the docks at Tahoe Vista just west of Kings Beach where we hit the ring road around the lake, Lake Blvd. As if we were not already late, traffic was at a standstill along Lake Blvd. because of construction projects in full force in the shoulder season between lake season and ski season. Like I said earlier, we were on Truckee time. It's kind of like Bend time and I imagine like in many other ski towns.

On arrival at a parking area near the docks, Kelley reached out to Dan who feared that the water level at the docks was too shallow for his boat, so they agreed to change the pick-up point to further west on the the north lakeshore, at Gar Woods pier in Carnelian Bay. Naturally, we encountered a lot more construction on the way there and a construction project prohibited us from parking near the pier. Ultimately, Mark let us off at the pier and continued on to find a parking spot a few hundred yards away while the three of us walked to the end of the pier to meet Dan, quite near noon as opposed to the original rendezvous time of 11.

This delay that would typically have been annoying and frustrating was actually wonderfully and serendipitously fortuitous. Just as we boarded Dan's boat, we heard an unusual noise that sounded like a brief toot on a steam whistle. I looked up to find the source of the noise to see a gorgeous mahogany boat, the 55-foot Thunderbird, coming quite slowly and serenely in our direction on the glassy lake. Thunderbird would prove to be the first of only two boats that we would see on the water all day. I would take a lot of photos of Thunderbird, most of which are in a subsequent post.

Thunderbird Arrived as We Departed

The following photos are in the order that I shot them as we made our way along the north shoreline past Incline Village though Crystal Bay to the east shoreline past Sand Harbor and past the Thunderbird Lodge where Thunderbird moors to Secret Beach where we anchored for a time. It getting to mid-afternoon and Mark needing to get to work in the late afternoon, we started back from Secret Beach in a direct line across the lake. Kelley would use this opportunity to wake surf for a few minutes before Dan put the throttle forward and zoomed us across the glassy lake, the only boat in sight, to the pier at Gar Woods where we left Mark's truck.

Prescribed Burn Just Lit at Burton Creek

West Shoreline

Tiny House with Funicular to Even More Tiny Boathouse

East Shore: Undeveloped Park Land

At Sand Harbor Beach

The Bear Scratch Below Herlan Peak; Some Nuts Ski This (Dan!)

Thunderbird Lodge Boat House

Thunderbird Lodge with Modern Eyesore Addition (on right)

Someone Decided Being Naked in Chilly Water Was Sane

Moocher at Secret Cove

Kelley's Delicious Sandwiches

You Go Girl!

Ripping Back, Tunes Bumping

Fun and Games with Shutter Speed
Droplets in our Wake, 1/3200 sec @ f 5.6

Back at the Gar Woods pier, we said goodbye to Dan and started our journey back to Truckee, this time continuing on west to take CA 89 back to Mark and Kelley's. Ann and I were both extremely happy at our experience on the lake and extremely tired. As mellow as our schedule had been over the past few days, it still took a toll on us. Now in our 60s, we are neither of us as go-go-go as we were even five years ago and we wanted to rest before hitting the road back to Oregon at dawn, so we did not linger long.

I was quite sad to say goodbye to Mark and Kelley at their house just before Mark left for the restaurant and I was also equally elated to have seen them and to have spent so much time with them after so much time apart. They're the kind of friends that when we reconnect, it's just like we have not been apart.

Ann and I headed back up the steep mountain to Tahoe Donner to pack our belongings for the trip back in the morning. Dinner, before an early turn-in time, was leftover pasta and meat sauce from Sunday night. I went to bed with a full stomach and a happy heart having experienced a phenomenal visit to California.

The following morning, we would head east on I-80 to Reno just at first light with the blazing sun in our eyes. After a touch of rush hour traffic on the interstate we turned northwest and headed back through California to Klamath Falls. The trip due north home to Bend was uneventful. Our travel lust sated, we were once again back in Bend for an extended period for the first time in a month or longer.