jay | Cleaner

I finally got to see Lake Tahoe for the very first time! It's beautiful... granted, the interminable strip-shopping, hotels and such around South Lake Tahoe and Stateline were dreary, but the lake and the mountains are a spectacle.

We stopped and had a picnic on an orange-sand beach (grano-diorites? andesitic fragments?) and then went to Squaw Valley.

Here's

patgreene on the beach... I like the background tree juxtaposition. Riding a cable car up to a mountaintop recreation area, we looked around and then all four of the males went ice skating. Whee! after three months layoff, I'd forgotten how much I missed flying and zooming and swirling on the ice. And the views from the outdoor rink, at 8500 feet... wow.

Back in Reno, we did our obligatory ritual of over-consumption, going to the hotel buffet... then I left Pat to tuck in the kids while I drove a few miles away to pick up our cleaned laundry. Dropping the car at valet parking, I made my way up through the casino, clutching 20lbs of folded laundry in a shrink-wrapped bundle. A bystander looked curious on the escalator... "I lost my shirt", I explained.

Actually, after a stint tonight at a piano bar with Pat (she's sleeping it off ;), we won a modest jackpot at a slot machine, and will leave Reno in the black, gambling-wise ;-). With clean shirts, no less.