Reno-Tahoe Weekend

Friday, April 15, 2011 -- Ashlee had her biennial corporate conference in Spokane, Washington, last week, so we decided to meet up afterwards in nearby Reno, Nevada, today for a long weekend visit to the area. Rob had arrived a day earlier and explored some of the Reno breweries (see his blog for more on that) and to play a little poker.

When Ashlee arrived at the Reno airport this morning, it was early enough to have breakfast downtown at Daughters Cafe. Despite a little slow service, the homemade food was delicious and unique. We started with some small hand-made sweet potato doughnuts which were decadent. Our main breakfast course consisted of a plate-sized Dutch Baby (think somewhere between a crepe and a pancake) for Ashlee and a huge omelet for Rob with goat cheese, apples and walnuts. Both entrees came with a side of delicious bacon as well. The restaurant is located near the Truckee River which flows through the middle of the city and has a very nice river walk accompanying it. The Truckee's path through downtown Reno is fairly swift-moving and tumbling, enough so to even accommodate kayakers. Downtown kayaking is not the only thing that makes Reno unique. Unlike it's "big sister" gambling town down south called Las Vegas, Reno seems more of a real town than just a playground. There are historic, vibrant neighborhoods scattered throughout the city limits, some sitting on high hills overlooking the city and ringed even higher by part of the snow-topped Sierra Nevada Mountains. Overall, it's quite a picturesque little city. There seems to be a lot of pride in being from or living in Reno. And why not, The town is clean with beautiful vistas in all directions and the residents (at least the one's we encountered) could not have been nicer.

After a little more exploring along the river walk, we headed south toward our real goal for the weekend, famous Lake Tahoe. While checking out Reno was on the agenda, seeing and experiencing as much of the natural wonder that is Lake Tahoe and it's surrounding mountains and forests would take up most of the rest of the weekend. It's about 50 miles from Reno to Tahoe and on the way you pass through the outskirts of Nevada's capital, Carson City. It's actually a quaint little city in comparison to bustling Reno with a ton of history of its own. We took a quick detour to check out the state capitol building which is a beautiful structure made of local sandstone and built among a large grove of cottonwoods. Continuing south as you crest Spooner Mountain on Hwy. 50 and see Lake Tahoe below for the first time, it's quite exhilarating. It's sheer size is daunting and the snow-covered mountains looming over it are what make postcard dreams. We were staying in the hamlet of South Lake Tahoe which is just over the Nevada state line inside California. It's a great little town to visit any time of the year with amazing ski access in the winter and unlimited lake access in the summer.

We chose to stay at very unique little place called 986 Park Hotel & Spa. It's an old motel that has been restored to a boutique hotel. What makes it unique is the fact that the "restoration" from cheesy motel to lovely hotel/spa has all been done with mostly reclaimed materials. Reclaimed wood and tin covered the place in decorative, tasteful ways. But it goes beyond just walls and trim; the front desk, the bar in the lobby, the tables throughout the hotel, the wardrobes in the rooms, etc. are all made from reclaimed wood. Our room itself was large, comfortable and quiet throughout our stay. We would definitely stay here again on another visit. Thanks to Jetsetter.com for recommending it and providing a great sale price.

We had an early dinner in our room of warmed up pizza from Zpizza over in Reno that Rob had picked up the day before. It was a Thai-flavored pie and the fresh, organic ingredients that this west coast chain is known for were still great tasting even reheated the next day. After eating, we donned our thermal undergarments and readied our warm clothes for our most anticipated planned activity of the trip -- a full-moon snowshoe tour. Neither of us had been snowshoeing before, let alone after dark in the moonlight. We were a bit nervous, not knowing what to expect as we drove a half hour around the gigantic alpine lake to the North Lake Tahoe Regional Park to meet up with our guides at 7 PM. The materials provided to us said we probably needed flashlights and waterproof shoes, and we had neither with us, so we stopped in the one place that was open after 6 PM and found both. It just happened to be a CVS pharmacy. Hey, you take what you can get.

We were scheduled to have 17 in our group, but only 13 showed up, so after a half-hour of waiting and the sun setting fast behind the snowy peaks, we got a quick tutorial from our guides, Kerry and Sander, on how to put on and walk in snowshoes. We then set off on our two-mile trek. The trail we were on was packed down pretty well with about a foot of snow which made for easy maneuvering over it. We picked up the art of snowshoeing fairly quickly and easily and are happy to report no trips, falls or face-plants. It seems that the key to snowshoeing is the fact that there is no slipping or sliding which makes for an easy, steady pace similar to hiking. It had been partly to mostly cloudy for most of the day and we weren't expecting a lot of moonlight, but we were pleasantly surprised when the full moon made an appearance from behind the clouds as we crested our first hill for a quick break. The brilliance of the moon glistening off the snow made our flashlights unnecessary. The pine and cedar forest we were moving through was very quiet and still except for a distance zephyr wind you could hear much farther up the mountain. Our guides gave us a good amount of information about the area, the lake and the surrounding flora and fauna during our trek. We took our longest break about a mile in atop a high ridge with a view of Lake Tahoe below. The moon was now in full view and it was an experience that is hard to describe in words...and even hard to capture in pictures, but here's the best we could do with the little camera we brought with us. Kerry and Sander provided us warm beverages which were tasty, but not really necessary since the movement and mild temps made for a pleasant evening for a moonlit stroll.

This was the last full moon hike of the season that was offered by the tour company and we feel really privileged and fortunate to have gotten this experience. Our last half of the walk was in pure full moonlight and the clouds pushed away and the stars shone brightly as well. We really enjoyed this experience and can't wait for another chance to snowshoe. Just to keep things in perspective and show that not everything always goes our way, while we were having this great snowshoe experience, the Nashville Predators were going down to the Anaheim Ducks in the Game 2 of the first round of the NHL Playoffs by a score of 5-3 and so did the money we had put on them at one of the state-line casinos that afternoon. Oh well, you can't have everything.

We got back to our room and were pretty tuckered out from the snowshoe trek. We warmed up the last two slices of Zpizza and called it a night. What a great first day in Tahoe! Saturday, April 16, 2011

We slept in a bit this morning and let the temps warm up outside as the sun finally crept up over Monument Peak looming some 3,000 feet above our hotel and into the valley that holds Lake Tahoe. We headed southwest this time around the lake with two waterfalls as our targets to visit. Our first stop along the winding Hwy. 89 that twists and turns high above the lake (with a noticeable lack of guardrails in many places!) was Emerald Bay. This large crescent-shaped inlet with it's own little island (Fannette Island) nestled in the middle of the bay is so exquisite that it doesn't even look real. Despite it being mid-April and the temps moving easily into the 60's by 10 AM, the amount of snow still clinging to the steep ridges dropping to the lake was tremendous. At times were were driving through snowbanks at least twice as tall as the car. As we turned into the entrance for Emerald Bay State Park, we got our first bit of bad news. "ROAD AND PARK CLOSED." Bummer. We were a couple weeks too early for access to the park and the trail to Eagle Falls. We headed down the road a bit for our second option, Glen Alpine Falls, at the far end of Fallen Leaf Lake. The road to get to it is very small and we figured it would be closed as well, but we kept going and were greeted with a completely cleared road. We took our time not only because the road was narrow and curvy, but because the views were amazing. Fallen Leaf Lake is pristine and the cabins and bungalows surrounding it are very nice without being over the top. This would be a great place to come back and rent a place for a week or so in the summer. When we got to the south end of the lake and the main road ended, we knew we were close, but there were no indications where exactly the falls were. There was supposed to be easy access from a small forest road and while we saw the sign for the road, we did not see the road itself. That's because it was under about 6 feet of snow! A friendly local gentleman told us that it was only a 10 minute walk up the "road" to the falls from where we were parked. Maybe we should have rented snow shoes for the day? He assured us it was packed down pretty well and should be too hard to get there. The snow was packed down fairly well and after a bit of slipping and sliding, we made it to the overlook of Glen Alpine Falls which was roaring with snow melt run-off. What a beautiful place and so worth the effort! We were able to experience this beautiful place with no one else around or a beautiful sunny morning. We again felt very privileged and fortunate in terms of timing.

We headed back to South Lake Tahoe and parked at our hotel. We were starving for lunch by now and decided to walk a mile back the way we had just come to The Brewery at Lake Tahoe for lunch. We intended to have a big lunch and we were definitely sampling some brews, so the walk was planned and necessary. The food was tremendous (best chili dog ever according to Ashlee) and the beer was top-notch. We each had a sampler paddle of their 9 available beers with their American Pale Ale and their Brown Ale being our favorites. The walk back was slow, but, again, necessary in terms of calories consumed and the effects of 45 ounces of beer on each of us. We contemplated renting snow shoes and perhaps going back to the entrance of Emerald Bay State Park and trying to get to Eagle Falls on foot, but the afternoon was bleeding away and we weren't sure we could get it done before darkness set in. We opted instead to walk across the street (after a bit of rest in the room) and take a ride on the Heavenly Gondola which whisks you up to the top of Monument Peak to a tremendous overlook and then on to snow-sport central at the heart of Heavenly Ski Resort, the largest in the area. The cost for the gondola is as steep as the grade it takes you up and the fact we had done something similar in Switzerland a few years back perhaps made us a bit skeptical of it, but overall it was a nice experience. We got a private gondola going up and the first-stop overlook is tremendous. The second stop, the entrance to the ski, snowboard and tubing trails was as busy as Times Square with people going in all directions to the numerous different trails offered. We stopped in a very cool outdoor bar for another beer ($8 a bottle! High altitude, high prices??) and enjoyed people watching for a while before taking the ride back down with a few other folks. We took another short drive as the sun was starting to set over to the Cave Rock Boat Ramp where we could get down close to the waters of Lake Tahoe. We couldn't resist taking our shoes and socks off and dipping our feet in the cold, cold water. After about 20 seconds your feet would start to turn blue, so, yeah, it was really cold. We got back to the room and rested up a bit and decided to stick with the theme of the day in terms of eating (and drinking) and walked north a quarter-mile or so to Stateline Restaurant and Brewery for dinner. This brewery is a little fancier than the one we went to earlier in the day, but the food was very good. We slowed down on the beer consumption with just a half-pint ordered for each of us. Another great day in Lake Tahoe. We hated the thought of having to leave this beautiful place tomorrow.

Sunday, April 17, 2011 Our flight out of Reno wasn't until 1:40 PM, so we were able to sleep in a little before getting packed up and saying goodbye to our lovely hotel, the great town of South Lake Tahoe and the beautiful lake itself. The weather was perfect again as we headed north back to Reno. We stopped for an early lunch at the famous west-coast fast food joint, In-N-Out Burger. The burgers and fries were tremendous and this place deserves all the hype it gets. Our flight home included a plane change in Denver. We rented a great movie starring Robert Duvall called "Get Low" off of I-Tunes to pass the time. After boarding our jet to Nashville in Denver we got quite a surprise when Wynonna Judd and her band boarded the plane behind us. I guess times are tough for everyone and you save money anyway you can. We had a little bit of fun coming up with inside jokes about the situation. Here are a few of the best:

"That's the best Wynonna drag queen impersonator I have ever seen." "Times must be tough in country music. Look who's in the B Group on Southwest." "I am sweating like Wynonna in the B Group line of Southwest." In all honesty, she seemed very gracious and down to earth (you have to be to fly the "cattle herd" style of Southwest Airlines). She waited her turn to get on and off the plane and made no demands during the flight. Someone sitting beside us said she was happily signing autographs at the Denver airport as well while waiting to take off. But that's Nashville "stars" for you. They never make much of a fuss. It was an interesting and nice finale to another great trip for us and the Reno/Tahoe area is definitely on our MUST RETURN LIST.