Day 20 - A Celebration at Lake Tahoe

We got up at sensible hour (having survived the night!), showered, breakfasted etc then hit the road around 10.00am. We were on a mission to get a nice scenic spot for about midday to have a video WhatsApp with my parents & the rest of my family who were rudely celebrating my Mother’s 80th Birthday without us!

Our planned scenic spot was Emerald Bay State Park on the west side of Lake Tahoe. We took I-80 westwards until we reached the California State Line & a California Border Protection Station. We were stopped & asked to produce what fruit & veg we had on board. Jackie went in to our kitchen area & returned with a handful of apples, oranges & assorted mixed salad. The guard was only interested in the oranges for inspection & gave them the all clear.

I exchanged pleasantries with him, then accelerated away. Unfortunately I had forgotten that Jackie was returning the greens to the open fridge & she lurched forward banging her head on the sink (& possibly swallowing a bag of 3 oranges).

After Truckee, we turned left towards Lake Tahoe on Route 89, a fantastically scenic drive following the Truckee River to Tahoe City & the shore of Lake Tahoe. Of note : we noticed that unlead fuel prices were now double what they were in St Louis.

We travelled south down the western shore of Lake Tahoe admiring the grand houses on the lake shore. We stopped at a scenic spot for a selfie on the pebble beach. The water was crystal clear, sparkled silver & in the background mountains were snow capped. We could & should have stayed here all day.

We arrived at Emerald Bay only to find the area had been infested with Japanese or Chinese tourists. Every available parking spot was taken up by them & there was no chance of us squeezing in our RV. So regrettably we continued southwards straining our necks to admire the views as best as we could as we drove along.

Eventually we arrived in South Lake Tahoe still on the California side amongst its low-rise motels & followed the lake round, but stopped short of crossing back into Nevada. We were now conscious of the time & were looking for anywhere suitable to have our WhatsApp video call with a relatively scenic backdrop.

We drove round & round & ended up parking in a Safeway supermarket. Evidently, Lake Tahoe doesn’t cater for RVers. We sneaked out of the ‘customer only’ car park & wandered along the southern end for a suitable broadcast stop. We found it, a rocky beach that was empty of other people, because it was quite an ordeal to get to.

With a few minutes to spare we donned our happy birthday tiaras & practiced with our non-tooting tooters. I caught a Japanese tourist taking a photo of us dressed up in our party outfits. At 1.00pm, we received the video call & we burst into our rendition of Happy Birthday. For 10 minutes we had a long distance (exactly 5,218 mile) video call with my Mother & whole family who were tucking into the finest food at the Spread Eagle Hotel In Midhurst, whist Jackie & I made do with a cheese & bovril roll!!

After what I think & hope was a successful video call, we put away our tiaras, & strolled along to El Dorado Beach or patch of sand. It was full of Hispanics having bbqs, so we didn’t stay long & decided to head out to our next campground.

We picked up Highway 50 & almost immediately we were stopped again at a California Border Protection Station. I informed the guard that we had been stopped earlier & he was only interested in our oranges. The guard asked to see our oranges, but said he wanted to have a look in our fridge as well. This is where things went downhill!

I turned to open up the side door & accidentally leant on the horn, making everyone including myself jump out of our skins. We let the guard into our RV & then went to retrieve the oranges for him. For the next 5 minutes plus, we hunted high & low looking for 3 oranges in a bag. It was embarrassing to say the least. I kept apologising to the guard & got more annoyed with Jackie for not remembering where she put them. In the end, the bored guard had had enough & said that he trusted us & sent us on our way. (At the time of writing, we still haven’t located the oranges 🍊 & I’m now wondering if I left the 1st guard still holding them when I sped off).

Now not talking, we climbed up into the gorgeous Sierra Nevada Mountains. After the summit we had the most enjoyable drive down the other side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. We descended some 4000 feet on a meandering road flanked by pine trees & a fast flowing river. We passed through the villages of Kyburz, Pollock Pines, Camino & the town of Placerville before arriving at our campground.

What a lovely surprise the Placerville KOA turned out to be. A nice grassy campground out in the countryside & our allocated spot was secluded, sunny & overlooking fields & woods. We got our washing sorted, then spent the remainder of the afternoon sitting in our camp chairs sunbathing. We have made the decision to do nothing tomorrow, but sunbathe, as it promises to be a sweltering ☀️😎 27 degrees.

FITBIT = 7,941 steps / 3.69 miles.

Song of the Day - Celebrate by An Emotional Fish.

Bonus Songs of the Day :-

Lake Tahoe Eyes by little hurricane
Happy Birthday by Altered ImagesRead more