We just got back from our trip to Lake Tahoe yesterday. We drove up there from Las Vegas. It took about 9 hours. Which made for 2 long days in the car there and back. But, we all had a lot of fun while we were in Lake Tahoe. On the way up we made a short stop at Rhyolite ghost town, which was fun, and much more authentic than our trip to Virginia City later in the trip.
We stayed at the Hyatt at Incline Village. I think Incline Village was my favorite area near the lake. It wasn't nearly as touristy as a lot of the other areas. The first day we walked across the street to a private beach for Incline Village residents and $14 got us all day access. The kids had a lot of fun there. They played "Pooh Sticks" (dropping a stick on one side of a bridge and seeing whose stick is first to pass through to the other side) and climed in trees. They also had a nice playground for the kids and Xander spent a while on the beach putting his feet in the (69 degree) water. Later that afternoon we took the boys swimming at the heated pool at the hotel. They had a kids only pool that was only 18" deep, which was awesome since I forgot to throw their life jackets in the car.
We also drove around Carson City to check out that area, we didn't really stop and do much there though. On Monday we went to South Lake Tahoe. We drove over to Emerald Bay on the California side (that is where Jason's brother Jeremy is getting married next month). And, on the way to Emerald Bay we stopped and took a short hike that led us to a place where they had windows so you could see under the stream and see the trout swimming around in there. The boys really enjoyed that, but I forgot to take my camera, since we hadn't planned on doing a hike right then.
After seeing Emerald Bay we went back to South Lake Tahoe to eat lunch and ride the Heavenly ski resort Gondola. Xander was very excited when he saw the gondolas, and kept saying "Ride that?" over and over until we got on it. It was a long scary ride for someone as afraid of heights as I am, but the boys loved it. They got some souvenier stuffed animals at the midstop gift shop. (Andrew hadn't brought a stuffed animal to sleep with and it was driving him crazy not to have one, so he got a bear wearing a Heavenly hooded sweatshirt). We didnt' really get to stay at the top since there was lightning in the area and they were sending everyone back down for safety reasons. It actually rained really hard that afternoon, so we spent the afternoon checking out more of Carson City, and surrounding areas.
On Tuesday we went and did the MS Dixie II family fun cruise. It was an hour and a half and we had lunch on board the ship. That seemed to be both of the boys' favorite part of the whole trip. Xander climed up and down to every deck on the 3 deck ship a million times (at least it felt that way to me, following behind him). We went up to watch the paddle wheel turn several times. It sailed across the lake from Zephyr Cove to Emerald Bay and we got a close up look of Vikingsholm ( a viking castle styled house on the shore of Emerald Bay). By the time the cruise was over Xander was very sleepy. He napped in the car on the hour or so trip to Virginia City. I was kind of disappointed in Virginia City. I had expected that it would be touristy, but it was even more so than I thought it would be. There are a few museum type things and original buildings that you can tour, but it's mostly just tourist trap shops. I preferred Tombstone, Arizona, I think. After Virginia City, we drove up through Reno, which was much larger than I had pictured, before heading back down through Truckee to Lake Tahoe and Incline Village.
Wednesday was just our trip home. We went down through Bishop, California. Then we cut across to Nevada on Highway 168. It goes past the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest (which we didn't drive over to see). It is the most curvy and most up and down piece of road I have ever been on. I came about as close to being car sick as I get. It felt like we were on a roller coaster. In hind site, it probably wasn't the best route home, but the canyon was pretty, and it was an adventure. :)
