Lake Tahoe

Wed, 8/17/11:


Goose Meadows NF Campground, Truckee, CA:  Got really cold last night.  Neither one of us wanted to get out from under the covers this morning.  Turned the heat on so we could take our showers.  Once the sun came up though it got really warm.  After lunch we drove down to Tahoe City on Lake Tahoe.  Only 13 miles south of us.  Followed the Truckee River all the way which was packed with floaters.  Hundreds of them!  And Tahoe City was packed as well. Traffic was bumper to bumper.  Drove around the lake as far as the Nevada line and then took a back road back to Truckee.  Some amazing homes on the lake.  And the lake is a beautiful deep blue with mountains all around.  Still snow on them in places!  A great place to have property since you can use it summer and winter. There are 63 streams that run into the lake and only one outlet—the Truckee River. Maximum lake depth is 1,645 ft.  Average depth is 900 ft.  Bet it’s cold!  Picked up some really nice home-grown tomatoes before we left Oakhurst, so we had BLTs for dinner tonight.  Played rummy after dinner.  Mike won both games (sigh).  Mid-80s today.  Not sure how cold it got last night, but it was 44 degrees in here this morning.  

Beautiful Lake Tahoe

Lake Tahoe

Tue, 8/16/11:
KOA, Coarsegold, CA, to Goose Meadows NF Campground, Truckee, CA:  We actually got going early this morning.  Left at 8:15.  I drove first.  We decided to just backtrack to Sacramento instead of going through the mountains.  I drove to about 30 miles south of Sacramento and we stopped for fuel and breakfast.  Then Mike took over.  Picked up 80 east in Sacramento and started climbing up into the mountains shortly after the eastern suburbs of Sacramento. Lots of long uphill pulls.  Our Allison transmission, Banks chip, and exhaust brake have done their job.  Especially the exhaust brake.  It holds the speed on long downhills without even touching the brake.  There’s still snow on the mountains around here. And we saw a couple of really pretty alpine lakes nearby—not to mention Lake Tahoe. We arrived here around 2:30 and got set up.  We’re on a little bluff overlooking the Truckee River.  And there’s a steep, pine-covered ridge across the river from us.  No hook-ups for 10 days.  

Our site on the Truckee River