A death march at Lake Tahoe

After leaving Nevada City we drove through Truckee. It is also an old western town with a lot of history, but it was much more crowded and had a bit of construction going on. Anxious to get to Lake Tahoe, we filled up the car's tank with gas and zipped out of town. Betty was a bit disappointed when we hit the north shore of Tahoe. She had not expected it to be so developed. She was probably expecting something closer to Crater Lake that we visited last fall. We drove down the western side of the lake and pulled into D.L. Bliss State Park. All the day-use parking down by the water was full, but we managed to snag the last spot up at the visitor's center. We decided to pack up our lunch and hike to the coast via the lighthouse trail. Thus began our "death march". It was a couple miles just to get to the entrance where they collect the entrance fees. Because we were on foot, there was no charge. We then headed up over the hill.

Betty near summit of lighthouse trail in D.L. Bliss State Park, Lake Tahoe

I noticed Betty was drinking a lot of her water, so I held off starting mine for a while. This was a wise decision as I later poured some of mine into her bottle before I began drinking any of my water. We finally made it to the lighthouse before heading down the hill to the day-use parking lot above the beach.

lighthouse on Lake Tahoe

There were plenty of spaces available in the parking lot by the time we arrived. Betty was not prepared to hike back the way we came, so we were planning to hike along the road. I contemplated hiking back alone to retrieve my car and then drive back to pick up Betty. I saw a woman wearing a Stanford t-shirt and struck up a conversation hoping it might lead to our getting a lift back to the park's entrance. No luck there, but we did manage to strike up a conversation with an older couple who later offered us a ride. We were both very happy to accept their offer.

We stopped at Emerald Bay where Betty got out to take some photos while I hunted for parking. We ended up moving on to Inspiration Point where we were successful in finding parking, so I was able to take my own photos of Emerald Bay.