Tahoe

Since I’ve never really been camping before, Eric and our good friends Lisa and Peter decided that we should all go for a long weekend. For two summers when I was young, my dad insisted that I attend the annual church girl’s camp. For a week at a time, I would swim, hike, cook, and make all sorts of crafts. At night, I slept in an A-frame shelter with one eye open- for fear of hungry bears but more so for a group of rotten girls who would steal my things at night and tease me endlessly during the day. I quickly came to dread what were supposed to be these spiritual camping adventures very quickly. Not to mention the filth factor. I hate all things filthy. And the outdoors definitely falls into that category.

On this occasion, Eric and Peter planned a weekend trip to Tahoe. Peter reserved a camping site, we rented an SUV, packed it full with all of our things, and then we were off! We left on a Friday and the drive up to Tahoe was really nice. Once we got there, I was expecting to see beautiful sprawling blue water and resorts nestled among tall trees, as the picturesque postcards suggested. But, I could barely even see the lake! Unfortunately there were various wildfires burning near Auburn and the thick smoke obstructed most of the views. We hoped that the air would clear as we found our way to the campsite, near Sugarpine (luckily it did). We quickly set up our tents, put away out stash of food and drinks, and decided to hit the town for dinner. We drove south to Stateline, where we ate dinner at a casino and shopped around at Long’s for a few forgotten items. When we returned to our campsite and got ready for bed, we noticed a young crowd of people setting up camp at the site next to ours. Unfortunately, we were kindly kept awake all night by the lovely chatter of drunken idiots…

The next day, we attempted to make scrambled eggs, found a nice spot to hike above Emerald Bay, made lunch, took a nice nap to recuperate from our lack of sleep, and made dinner. One thing I learned was that making meals out in the great wide open was a grand feat! We took our portable bbq with us, and nearly every meal we brought to make turned into a big problem because it would either not cook properly or we didn’t have the right utensils to make it. But we made do. The best meal of the day was certainly dessert, when Eric made us a nice campfire and we roasted some marshmallows for s’mores.



After a decent night sleep this time, we attempted to make pancakes for breakfast on Sunday morning (another flop, unfortunately) and packed up all of our things for the long drive back home. On the way home, I decided that it was a good time, but would have been better if we had rented a cabin or some sort of accommodation that at least had a shower… I felt absolutely filthy after three long days among nature. A nice long shower once I got home was never more appreciated!