In Reno we stayed on the main drag, the famous sign was just about a block away from our hotel.
I can mark Reno off my "been there" list. It has it's historical neatness about it, and it seems as if Reno does have some stuff to offer (they have a river walk) but we were only there for one night and then off to Lake Tahoe. We walked around this main street (it didn't take very long) just checking everything out. It was weird to see big casinos empty and shut down! One big empty casino turned the outside into a big climbing wall! Pretty good idea, and they seemed to be doing good business. We ended up at the Eldorado Brew Brothers for some dinner and micro brews. Good food and they had a live band that started up once we got there. Started off with some good music, I starting missing my old club days back in Oki! But then the music got bleh and we called it a night. Well, I did. Shane did some gambling that first night and did decent. I don't mind him gambling because he is somewhat smart about. Goes down with a plan, how much to spend and when he wins he starts putting it to the side.
We got up at a decent time and headed out. Shane's cousin lives in Lake Tahoe and works for the casino and she really hooked us up with places to eat and things to do :D Before we left the Reno area we had breakfast at the Squeeze In. Their claim to fame is their omelets. They are good and I'm not a big omelet person! The atmosphere was eclectic and hippy like so I enjoyed that :D Shane focused on getting his new toy working, a GoPro.
Guys and their toys! He borrowed one for our canyoneering trip and I wasn't totally shocked when he bought one for this trip. I'm more of a picture gal but he likes the video. He took a lot but I haven't seen any of them yet. We mounted it on the inside of the car but that wasn't working too well (glare, a lot of dash in the video) so we eventually put it outside of the car! That made me nervous but at our first stop there was a couple in a Porsche that had one mounted on their windshield and they've never had a problem.
We took a mountain road into Lake Tahoe and it was beautiful with all the overlooks!
We took our time driving to our hotel. We checked out short hikes that we'd be passing on our way to the south side of the lake. Our first stop was at Sugar Pine Point State Park.
It had an old lodge built in 1902 as a summerhouse for the wealthy. We didn't go inside but walked around the grounds and down to the beach. It was beautiful! First time walking down to the water and there is huge pine cones and geese! I'm use to palm trees and seagulls!
Our next stop was for a little hike to Cascade Falls. It's just a mile out and then a mile back. But with it being to a water fall it's not a flat easy trail :P A lot of uphill and rocks! Ugh. It was worth it though! It overlooked Cascade Lake which is a private lake. Shane and I wondered about the lake, we heard later on that it was used for movies... so with the help of google here is some information on the private Cascade Lake if you're interested! John Steinbeck wrote his first book there while he was hired as a caretaker and tutor!
After that hike we headed to our hotel, The Tahoe Beach Resort! I recommend it! It's small, and they are doing renovations right now so it will just get better. We had a room that overlooked the lake, there was a fireplace in the room that was never used but would be awesome during winter! They have activities for families and just neat stuff to do... yoga on the beach, wine tasting! A pretty good set up! Friday was a long day but good. We ended up at MacDuff's Pub (walking distance) for dinner!
Saturday we had a relaxing morning before heading out on a longer hike.
We went by a grocery store and got some food for lunch and headed out. We hiked a portion of the Rubicon Trail, starting at D.L. Bliss state park. It's about a 4 mile hike (one way) but we went and checked out an old light house so we did about 5 miles that day. The hike takes you around Emerald Bay and we stopped at the Vikingsholm castle. We didn't get a tour because at this time we realized we had a bit of a time crunch. We were planning on taking a shuttle back to the state park so we didn't have to hike back but the last shuttle took off in about 20 minutes and we still had to hike up to parking lot which was a straight up hike! We were going try and if we missed the shuttle we were going to hitch hike back. Shane stopped some workers to confirm the shuttle time and one of the workers offered us a ride back to the park! SCORE! Talk about vacationers luck :D Awesome! We actually high fived we were so stoked! I was sort of looking forward to my first hitch hiking adventure...but I guess that is for another time;)
the Lighthouse
our lunch stop
Vikingsholm
Now Shane had a plan for the night so he was stressing about getting back to the hotel so we can go to dinner. We didn't have reservations anywhere but the whole sunset thing was crucial.
Yes ladies and gents, he proposed! I didn't make it easy on him. I was tired from the hike and I just wanted to shower, throw on some cloths, and get some food. He wanted to look nice. So I did, but I took my time not knowing anything. He wanted to walk down to the beach and I'm just thinking FOOD! We stopped there and just enjoyed the sunset and I'm still thinking FOOD and then he does the one knee thing and proposes. He smartly added the long engagement clause, which I also repeated :P but at the same time the word yes came out before my brain got engaged with what was going on! So ta da!
After that I finally got some food ;)
On Sunday the plan was for a lazy day, and his cousin got us some comp tickets for a boat cruise across the lake. We had a nice little breakfast before setting out on the M.S. Dixie!
The boat went from the east side to Emerald cove, so it was neat to see it from the water after hiking around it on Friday! A lot easier too :P It was a touristy thing to do and they told us neat stuff and facts about the lake. A very nice way to spend the morning! We then went back and spent a few hours on the beach! Shane got into the water but it was too cold for me! I got half way up my calf and I was done!
That night we met up with his cousin and her husband for dinner. It was a good time and then we checked out the casinos. A casino is a casino to me but it was neat all the same. We went into Harvey's, the beginning of it all... of course it's all renovated and not it's old self but it's still neat to check everything out. Shane did a little gambling there, didn't do well but didn't "loose" anything either.
Monday was our drive through the desert back :( Ugh but this was our parting shot leaving our hotel.
It was a wonderful vacation! It was hard to come back to work.
After he propose he wanted to start calling people :P I, on the other hand, wanted to keep it to ourselves before making any post or calls plus we were on vacation! I'm not a phone person anyway so why would I want to spend my vacation time on the phone! He did tell Codi while we were still there, that was fine. I haven't made any FB post either for the same reason, we wanted to call/text and tell people that were close and important to us so they don't find out via the Internet. We might have missed someone here and there but I'm going to load ALL my vacation pics onto FB today and the word will then be out to the masses!
If you want to check out all of my vacation pictures, go here!
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