 ight
from the start, I'll admit that this is probably the most boring
vacation photo page in this section. Tahoe was interesting, and my write
up of the trip was interesting (in theory) but these pictures are pretty
lame, which is entirely due to my only taking photos one time, when we
were outside out hotel, playing in the knee-deep snow.
Pictures of the
mountain, pictures of the lake looking down from 10,000 feet up,
pictures of the ski hills and the back country tree runs with thigh deep
powder, pictures of the lodge, pictures of the tubing run, pictures of
Malaya managing to stay upright on her snowboard for more than 5 seconds
at a time, pictures of the casinos, pictures of the city from the 19th
floor buffet at Harrah's, and so on and so on. All of those were cool
things I saw, but didn't have a camera to record.
Instead, you get a
dozen shots of snow and a lake with more snow in the background.
Hopefully we'll return
to Tahoe for a day or two later this winter, and I'm sure we'll get back
up there in the summer as well. But as of this first batch, you'll
probably want to skim right along over the remainder of this page.
Malaya hadn't played
in the snow in years and years, and she'd never made a snow
angel. Nor had her friend, M. They both made them this
time, standing on the packed down path out from our back patio towards
the lake, and falling over backwards, theatrically, with their arms
stretched out. Neither design looks especially like an angel, but at
least they get points for trying, unlike the rest of us who just watch
and take photos.
These two shots are
both very weirdly blue, given that they were taken on a bright, sunny,
cloudless day, in the shadow of the hotel. Light reflecting on snow
makes for some strange colors, through the camera's lens, and both of
these photos were lightened considerably to even make them
discernable.
A view out at the
pier from right behind our hotel. It was covered in snow and blocked
off at the beach, since they don't want your dumb ass slipping in the
snow and falling into the lake. Lake Tahoe is at 6000 feet and
it snows a ton, but it never gets cold enough to freeze up there in
the winter, with lows in the 20's and 30's.
A shot of Malaya, in
her cute new snow jacket and borrowed (from me) snow pants. This
was after we returned from snowboarding all Saturday morning and into
the afternoon, and we were all pretty tired, so our snow play was
rather limited.
I liked the beach; a
weird strip of dirty sand between the frigid waters and the two feet
of powdery snow. Click this shot to see a larger view.
In the background,
you can just see part of the casinos in Nevada. The tall gray
rectangle of glass is Harrah's, home of the best (but still not very
good) buffet in town.
You get an idea of
just how deep it was and how light it was in this shot. We were
nearly knee deep with every step, and little kids in this stuff were
just about vanishing when they fell down.
Another look at the
lake, to the northwest. That's Nevada over to the right,
California to the left.
Looking straight
across the lake, to the west, towards California. Despite the tons of
available building materials, snowmen were just about impossible to
create, since the snow was so powdery and flaky that you couldn't ball
or roll it up at all. Those little pointy things to the right are
about as big and recognizable as the "snowmen" ever got,
despite our efforts and those of various kids staying at the hotel
over the two days we were there to see the progress.
Another look at the
footprints one left behind while trudging through this stuff. It was
tiring walking ten yards; imagine going for miles? Certainly
shows why snowshoes were invented.
Despite being nearly
freezing and the thick snow covering all sources of shore forage, the
lake boasted a considerable amount of ducks and geese and seagulls. It
was funny to see them swimming by as if the water were fine, but much
funnier to see them land on the snow. I kept expecting them to
simply disappear into the drifts, but they had a technique for landing
with their feathers and wings wide and could sit on the surface. And
presumably take off again without floundering around the way the
humans were.
The snow was no good
for snowballs, but once it had a slight crust on it it was great for
writing in. I did this message on the edge of the lake, where
the snow was banked up and crusty. Unfortunately, I couldn't
back up enough to get a good straight on view of it without walking
into the lake, and from the side the angle was hard to frame or
read. The perils of the medium, I suppose.
And one last cute
picture, with me sitting behind Malaya, or her sitting on top of me,
however you want to look at it. This photo is the sequel to one we
took after our first real hike together, up on Mt. Diablo. See?
More, better, more
varied Tahoe photos to come next trip.
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