Trip to Lake Tahoe

Last weekend we took a spontaneous trip to Lake Tahoe. I’ve never been there and wanted to see what all the hype was about. On Wed., I got on-line and found a hotel for $44.00! It had the same review stars as hotels 3 times the cost, so I figured why not. We left Sat. morning and got there around 1:30. We left in a hurry, surprise, surprise, so I didn’t even know what time check-in was. The Blue Lake Inn is a smaller hotel, so he said if the room was ready, we could have the keys. As Ryan was checking in, I could hear him telling Ryan that he didn’t know how we got that rate, but since that what it said, that is what he would charge us. Since Ryan has traveled a lot recently, he has become a hotel snob and was not impressed with our room. Reggie, however, walked in and said, “this is the best hotel ever!” Ainsley was also excited about our home for the night.

Enjoying our hotel room:

The weather was beautiful, so we got our suits on and headed to the pool. Reggie has turned into quite the swimmer and was having a lot of fun. The princess was in the hot tub because the pool was too cold. Thankfully, it was a relatively cool hot tub…she would have stayed in there all day if we would have let her. After that, we decided to head to the beach to check out the lake. The location of the hotel was great! It was about a block off the busy strip and a couple blocks from a semi-private beach that we were given passes for. The kids dug in the sand, threw the frisbee with Ryan and played on the play structure a bit. It was record breaking hot weather there, which thankfully was only in the high 70’s, but it felt really warm. We went to test out the water and quickly realized we’d just be looking at it. It was freezing! It was fun to watch the parasailers and be amazed at the size of the lake. Reggie called it a sea-lake, as big as a sea but really a lake! By the end of our play time, no one could walk on the sand because it hurt our feet so bad. It was like tiny, tiny pebbles and our feet got some exfoliation. We like the smooth sand at Lake Cavanaugh much better :o).

Ryan’s favorite part about heading somewhere new is eating out. Since we were in South Lake Tahoe, which is technically Nevada, we were going to go to a casino buffet, but decided not to take the kids through the smoky, game-filled casino. We ended up at Denny’s and haven’t been there in a long time, so it was REALLY good and it happened to be kids eat free night, so that was a nice bonus. By the time we got back, it was movie time and then to bed. Bedtime is always a bit challenging and since Ainsley’s took a little snooze in the car, she was up until 9:15.

They were up bright and early at 6:45, but played quietly so mama and papa bear could get a little more sleep. That morning, we decided to ride the gondola up to the top of the hill. It was very expensive, but worth it! Reggie was pretty nervous (he doesn’t like heights), but ended up doing great. There was a nice viewing area at the top where we took pictures and had a snack. We rode it a little further where we got off and went for a little hike and spotted some big prints, but thankfully, we didn’t see what belonged to those prints. The top is over 10,000 feet and it is a little crazy on the way down. The gondola stopped a couple times and I could see the panic on Reggie’s face. His thoughts seem so much older than the thoughts of a six year old. He’s recently decided he won’t sleep in his room and Ainsley told us it was because he was afraid someone would come in the front door and take him and we asked him if that was true and he said no, he was worried the spider’s were going to get him. So, I guess Ainsley has some big thoughts for a 4 year old! Before I had kids, I thought they had to be like 8 or 10 before they understood things, but now it know it is more like 3!!! It is pretty amazing how smart they are :o). That was a bit of a tangent….we headed out after lunch and both slept a good amount on our 3 ½ hour drive home.