Road Trip to South Lake Tahoe

We had a wonderful road trip to S. Lake Tahoe. Steve and I are truly compatible travel buddies! We drove the rental car, so were fairly comfortable. We took 2 days each way, coming and going, taking the back roads there and the freeway returning, and 3 days with Tyler and Sara.

I thought it was treacherous in the snow, even tho this picture doesn't quite look like it.

Ty and Sara have a really lovely life together.


I loved seeing him as a sweet and affectionate boyfriend (and neat in the kitchen!) and she is, well, there's no other way to say it, a great addition to all our lives. She's adorable, smart, and funny. They do crossword puzzles together!

We played in the snow with their new pup, Aspen (they live on Quaking Aspen Lane), and here's Steve "wrassling" with her, did the requisite parent things like getting a warm curtain for their bedroom window and putting a door sweep and insulation in the gaping hole of their front door.
Their apartment has had some "settling' issues (see upstairs porch in picture of Ty outside with Aspen). We walked over to the ski lift from his place, which is only a few hundred yards away from his door. His restaurant is even closer, about half way to the ski lift. He's doing well at the restaurant,and was promoted to sous chef, which means he's second in command to the head chef! Sara's learning a lot and writing some controversial stories in her new job as a journalist at the Tahoe Daily Tribune newspaper..




Ty made lots of scrumptious food for us, including a fab leg of lamb and a panna cotta. Oh, yum.. I'd left my camera in the car or there'd be a picture of it.




Steve and Tyler did some derelict-bonding, too.

On our return trip we had to put on chains at the Oregon border from California. This was my very first experience with chains, ever. (I've led too sheltered a life, I guess!) So I found it quite exciting, even tho it's quite mundane for all the trucks lining the roads who have to do it so often.


On the first day we started out Steve had to put on the chains and then they closed the freeway so we had to take them off and go back to Yreka, to a motel earlier than we'd planned. (Yreka Bakery is a palindrome),


Then the next day we had to put them on again, in the sunshine, with no snow on the road, and then they were barely necessary for a very long time until we could take them off again.

We arrived home quite late at night the next day, always glad to be home. We'd left on a Friday and returned late on the next Thursday, and still had no word about the insurance for my wrecked car. Now it's the day after Christmas, and maybe we'll get a call some day this week letting us know how much they're going to give us, so we can look for another used car. I'm having a bit of a problem understanding that my crappy looking car (because of the previous deer incident damage) , which was doing well internally, won't be worth as much to USAA as it was to me. Sob.