On the third day of Tahoe

We saw the frozen fountain in 3D at Heavenly Village...

followed by Star Wars in 3D.  

My favorite post episode VI Star Wars movie to date.

Then we went icesabor hunting in the Haerr neighborhood.  

On the second day of Tahoe

Steve and Denise know all the best places to go in Tahoe.

Our morning started with snowshoes and the old forest service road up to the Stateline Fire Lookout.  It is 1 mile each way, an easy snowshoe with rewarding views of the lake and the surrounding sierras.  

The fire lookout, built at 7,017 feet elevation, was in use from 1936 to 2002, when it became obsolete due to advancements in fire detection technology, which does not include optic nerves and cerebral hemispheres.  

We continued on, driving around the lake to Squaw Valley.   In February of 1960, 30 nations and 665 athletes participated in the Winter Olympics.  The ski resort was undeveloped in 1955, but after being chosen to host the 1956 Olympics they had four years to build the infrastructure to support the athletes, the staff, and 50,000 spectators. 

Total cost- 80 million dollars. 

Walt Disney was the first ever Director of the Pageantry for Olympic games, and set a gold standard for Olympic games to come.  It was also the first Olympics to be televised live to both national and international audiences.

The resort attracts approximately 600,000 skiers each year, and some non-skiers like us who are here for free warm chocolate chip cookies and views of the peaks.  I took my cookie happily pretending like 'I deserved it' as the Squaw Valley employee told me; she did not know that I did not pay 139$ to ski there for the day, and did not burn the calories to really deserve it. 

Our evening ended watching the premier of the movie Streif: One Hell of a Ride in what was once the dining room for the Olympic competitors.  The documentary followed ski racers from around the world as they prepared and faced the Streif, the Hahnenkamm Mountain downhill course in Austria. In 2003, Daron Rahlves (pictured above) won the Hahnenkamm.  It had been 44 years since a skier from the United States won this particular race.  Gruesome video clips of the injuries obtained as competitors traveled upwards of 120 mph in hopes of winning the race are showcased; proving it to be a feat just to make it to the finish line.  

On the first day of Tahoe

The drive to Tahoe from Oceanside is 500 miles.  It is supposed to take 9.5 hours but it took Eric and I 12 hours.  

There are many factors to blame; wind, pit stops, snowy roads, picture opportunities... 

what a gorgeous day.  

Mono Lake is the oldest lake in North America.  I can only imagine that it has elongated countless of 395 road trips over its hundreds of thousands of years in existence, not just ours.  

It is a terminal lake which means it has no outlet.  Over time it collects salts from Eastern Sierra rocks, creating a body of water that is 2.5 times saltier than the ocean.  

Lake Mono foam is created from winds that agitate the carbonate rich water.

Another result of carbonate in the water are tufa.  Tufa are towers made from calcium carbonate (basically limestone) created when the carbonates in the lake water react with calcium in fresh water springs.  Tufa towers grow exclusively underwater; the water level dropped after water began to be diverted to Los Angeles in 1941.

A tufa window. 

A tufa photobomb.  

A tufa reflection.

Tufa sailboats.

We got up to Tahoe just after sunset.  

Day one of our Tahoe trip will have to wait for day two.

Death Valley, day 3

At 282 feet below sea level Death Valley is the 8th lowest depression on Earth and the lowest in North America.  It was something that we didn't want to miss so we drove to Badwater Basin in the morning.  

The name Badwater comes from the 'bad water' here.  Although there is a spring it mixes with the salt making it undrinkable. 

Badwater Basin is a vast salt flat.  

I even ate some salt after Eric sparked my interest by telling me it wasn't as salty as he thought it would be.  

For the record it is exactly as salty as you would think it would be.   

And that is all she wrote.  It was time to head back home and face the reality that is work.  

I don't think a trip (as incredible as it was) would have been complete without seeing the infamous wild, wild horses.