Lake Tahoe and Donner Memorial Park

9/18 We toured Lake Tahoe and looked at the beautiful scenery, expensive houses and marveled at the beauty of nature and the depravity of man. All in all a good time topped off with hot apple pie ale mode. Plus we got to travel on the old Lincoln Highway, Old US 30, now 50.

Our first stop was at a state park on 28 but they didn't allow dogs so we moved on down the road working our way counter clockwise around the lake. We stopped at an overlook and snapped some pictures of the third deepest lake in America.

 I always wanted to go to Truckee so we made a right and drove on through the little tourist trap. It was a cool little town that was packed with people on this warm summer day. I can't imagine what it would be like in ski season with seven plus ski resorts around the lake. Anyways, Becky was poking around on the map and saw the Donner State Memorial. Now if you don't know about the Donner Party...well they took a cut off on the Oregon Trail into California. They were the second party to do so and they were moving slow and ended up in the mountains when snow started to fall. They were trapped and half of the 84 people in the party died. Some resorted to cannibalism and that is what makes the party famous.

The new visitors center. The movie was rather boring, the narrator was very drone.

 This statue commemorates the members of the Donner Party. The statue stands on a 22 foot high pedestal as a reminder of how much snow fell that winter. 22 FEET!! 

 We turned back to the lake and circled around. This is a beach on the west side. You can see how low the lake is. Most of the grass in the sand should be under water.

 This beach is on the west side, I believe is Meeks Bay. 

 From the beach the road climbed up and up to give us a stunning view of Emerald Bay and then ran along the spine of the mountain to drop quickly into Camp Richardson and the South Lake Tahoe where Becky bought some yarn. We also got ice cream!!

 Cave Rock Tunnel on 50 seven miles north of Stateline, CA

http://www.southlaketahoe.com/media/p/Getting-to-tahoe-cave-rock.jpg

We ended back in Minden, got the Tahoe washed and pretty again and then went to eat some supper and settle in for the night.

Selfie with the cat. She says, "your selfie is evil!"

I feel like I was really slacking on pictures, there were some cool things and places that we saw but I didn't take pictures and so I can't share them with you. I apologize and will make it up on the next few posts cause we took lots!