Tahoe Baby!

So, a couple of weeks ago, Kim & I, Chuck & Lisa, our new friends Chris & Karen, and the Pelotes (Kim's friends from "Family Tree Maker") all went to Tahoe for a long weekend. Chris & Karen wanted to go wine tasting on the way, so we stopped and got a few pics of The Twins in gold country. The wine was pretty mediocre. We finally got to our campsite that afternoon. I had booked our campsites in Emerald Bay State Park based on the 2D map indicating it was close to the water. In 3D, we were 300 feet above lake level and a quarter mile hike to the water. No rolling The Twins down to the beach.



We setup camp and Chris opened a huge can of chili (good thing the restrooms were right across the street). The other two couples showed up after dark (probably to miss dinner). Chuck's Jeep's caliper actually caught fire on the way up, so they were ready for a cocktail when they got there. Pelotes brought their kids, so they joined us in a libation too.

Saturday morning, we took Chris & Karen and the Pelotes crew sailing on the Twins. We had a bit of trouble finding a launch. We were already seriously overloaded and had to leave Chuck & Lisa to their own devices. We slogged about the marina on the south end of Tahoe and just as we were about to give up and head back in, the wind picked up. We wanted to get the geocache on Fannette Island, so we headed northwest as close as the wind and ballast would let us. I kept having to head out into the middle of the lake to make any kind of northerly progress against the NW wind. While we were out there, a rental boat full of obviously foreign tourists was heading toward us. At first, I thought they were just coming over to see the pretty boat. When they started to get a little too close for comfort, I yelled at them. The guy in the bow turns around, sees us, and runs back to the helm. He veered away just in time to miss us by about twenty feet. That obviously freaked everybody out a bit, but we escaped unscathed. Factor our near-miss with the fact that we weren't heading toward Emerald Bay anymore, and we decided to turn around. I was able to sail through the mooring field and place The Twins right on the beach where we launched. We put the catamaran back on the trailer and headed back to camp. The Pelotes seemed to enjoy our slightly extreme daysail and I learned to never overload the cat again, for safety reasons.

Sunday, we hiked a part of the Rubicon trail and saw the highest lighthouse on navigable water in the world. We also picked up several geocaches along the way.



Chris & Karen opted to stay an extra day, so we did some more geocaching after packing up the campsites. Kim and I hiked down to Vikingsholm so that we would actually see Emerald Bay. It was pretty cool looking, but a killer hike. Kim and I decided to head home after that. All in all, a great trip, even though we didn't make it to Fannette Island. Kim jokingly refers to it as my qixotic windmill. Next time, we'll have an inflatable dinghy and an outboard to get to that damn island.