Friday 17th March – making the most of recommendations!

Simon and I enjoyed a rare night out of the RV, staying in a lovely en-suite guest room.  Leah must have done a great job of keeping her boys quiet as neither of us heard a thing whilst they got ready for school and playgroup!  I stirred about 830am after a great night’s sleep and got the teas in before hearing Leah get back home from the morning drop-offs.

Leah made us delicious omelettes for breakfast while we continued chatting, mostly about our trip and future plans.  Leah had mentioned how beautiful Lake Tahoe is, though warned that it may be quite cold still there at this time of year.  We spent a while perusing maps and looking at options for our day as we had awoken to another glorious warm sunny morning.  Nate had arrived home late the previous evening so luckily we also got to meet him and had time to talk some more before we left them to get on with their busy day.  

The first tip from Leah had been a hike in the Auburn State Park, only about 30 minutes away from their house.  On our way there, Simon reminded me that we hadn’t yet achieved one of his dreams – meeting a cop from California Highway Patrol and maybe even getting a photo or two.  Simon was a huge fan of the TV show CHiPs and now there is even a movie coming out, regenerating his interest in the force.  A quick bit of research identified a CHiPs office on our way to Auburn, so we parked up and went to see if our charms would work.  Sergeant Doug Milligan couldn’t have been more welcoming.  We were handed a CHiPs shoulder patch each before he showed us out to their fleet of vehicles, showing us the whole range and even letting us have a seat inside.  We must have been there for about 45 minutes, and were given a commemorative coin each.  Simon left grinning from ear to ear.

One of the newest cars on the fleet

An old classic

A short journey onwards to the Auburn recreation area and the views of the tree-covered hills and greeny/turquoise waters were stunning.  We parked up near a footpath that Leah had recommended, the Lake Clementine trail, but found that it was also a bike path so we decided to dust off the mountain bikes as they haven’t seen the outside world for weeks! The start of the trail was flat but it soon became rocky and steep.  In fact the going got pretty tough so I ended up getting off my bike to push it uphill.  I’m losing my fitness as we go! Simon gave up, returning to the rivers edge at the bottom of the hill,  but I had spotted a dam in the distance and that gave me the motivation to keep going to see the view and get some photos (right). 
 















Plus of course, the best bit about the tough outward journey was the fact that heading back to the RV was mostly careering downhill fast the way we had come. I returned to find Simon, shoes off and paddling in the river…

Spot the RV....

It was gone 330pm by the time we were ready to hit the road to carry on towards Lake Tahoe.  Today is a perfect example of plans changing depending on recommendations.  Before we visited Leah yesterday, our plans for today had been to make as much ground towards Salt Lake City as possible. But now we were enjoying some great parks that we would have just passed by.

Back on Interstate 80, it was far more picturesque than I had expected.  We climbed and suddenly the snow reappeared amongst the evergreen trees when we got above about 5000 feet. 

Donner Lake

Due to the high price of gas in California we had planned our fuel to head straight out of the State. The only bad thing about this extra detour was that it meant we had to top up with some even more expensive gas at $3.59 a gallon!  We tried only putting $40 in but that didn’t get us over the magic quarter tank we would need if we wanted to have the generator as an option.   So we reluctantly stuck another $20 in! Heading down to Lake Tahoe, the snow ploughs have clearly been kept busy this winter – snow stacked up several feet high at both sides of the road.  Simon found a state park on the west cost of the lake – Sugar Pines – we arrived there about 530pm to find notices up stating that the camp ground was closed as of the 27^th February due to being snow-bound and would stay shut until further notice.  Oh.  We checked in any case - The road into the camp ground was definitely blocked with snow!  But we drove through the day-use car park and found a family from Vancouver eating their dinner by their camper van. We had a quick chat with them and they explained that they were staying in the car park and had already seen the warden, who’d said this wasn’t a problem.  We agreed to be neighbours and set up for the night.  Just the two of us in the RV again, like old times!  It was time to get catching up on my long forgotten blog!