Carol, Ed, Eme and I flew from DFW to Reno on Saturday. We needed to get Nevada in our state book as well as California. We picked up a rental SUV and headed over to the Automotive Museum to do the Truckee River 10K event. It was 91 degrees but it felt wonderful. The humidity was so low it didn't feel hot at all.
Carol, Eme, Ed and I had stayed at South Lake Tahoe and headed out for Squaw Valley on Sunday morning. The views along the shoreline were breath takingly beautiful. We stopped several times to take pictures.
We found the walk start at Squaw Valley without incident and had a good time on the walk. We saw lots of people we knew from Texas on the walk.
After the walk we went on north to the Donner State Park and then on the way back to our motel in South Lake Tahoe we stopped at Emerald Bay State Park to view the falls and visit Vikingsholm Castle. The one mile hike down to Vikingsholm (and the Lake Tahoe shoreline) was easy, the hike back up was a little harder!! When we reached the top is when we first noticed the smoke and learned about the forest fire at South Lake Tahoe. We returned to our motel, went out to eat and monitored the news reports. When the fire got to within five miles of town and they predicted that the wind would die down at nightfall and the whole valley would fill up with smoke; we packed up our bags and went back to Reno. We had planned to do the Calavaras Big Trees YRE on Monday. The wild fire closed the road from South Lake Tahoe south to that event. We were all very sorry to miss getting to see the giant redwoods.
Carol, Eme, Ed and I walked the evening walk. This event in Old Town Sacramento was very nice. Unfortunately most of the pictures I took are on my sister's camera which is on it's way back to Tennessee!! Here are a few pictures and I hope to be able to amend the page soon with the rest of them.
We did this hike/bike trail YRE before visiting the Crocker Art Museum. The hike/bike trail is very wide and nice. However, the directions could use some work. To people not familiar with the area, the landmarks given as the points of reference are not readily apparent. We did enjoy the blackberry patches along the route though!
We drove back East about 40 miles to walk at Coloma (Sutter's Mill). Eme didn't do the walk, she went straight into town and just looked around. Ed, Carol and I did the 10K event that climbed the ridge before going to the historic sites. This was a great walk. There are two pages of pictures. The first page is listed, go to the bottom of it and click on the link to see the second page.
Leaving Coloma we headed on in to San Francisco. Checked into our hotel and went off to try the cable cars. We go on one okay, but it only went a couple of hills before it quit. They had us all get off and wait for another car. Of course, they were all full. It was over an hour before we got a ride the rest of the way to the waterfront. We ate at Pier 39 and then headed back on another cable car to our hotel. Luckily this one made it without incident. We drove the rest of the time there!
Carol, Ed, Eme and I flew from DFW to Reno on Saturday. We needed to get Nevada in our state book as well as California. We picked up a rental SUV and headed over to the Automotive Museum to do the Truckee River 10K event. It was 91 degrees but it felt wonderful. The humidity was so low it didn't feel hot at all.
Only Ed and I walked the YRE. We did Lombard Street, The Coit Tower, Little Italy, China Town, Telegraph Hill and Nob Hill. We were tired and this is a tough YRE. When we came to Hyde Street we turned off and headed back to the start.
Carol, Ed, Eme and I did a tour on Friday. First we went by bus to Muir Woods to see the coastal redwoods (tallest while the others we missed are the biggest around) and Sausalito. Then we did the ferry to Alcatraz and finished the day with dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe at Pier 39.
Carol, Ed, and I walked the Mt. Livermore trail on Angel Island. We thought Eme was going to just hang out at the Museum, but she she went ahead and did the Mt. Livermore trail too. She finished up just a little behind us. It was another great Convention Event.
Carol, Ed and I walked the Golden Gate Bridge Convention Event. Eme started out with us but decided to look at the underneath side of the bridge for a different prespective. The walk started at the Officer's Club in the Presideo. We had a beautiful day with no fog! The noise level from cars going by was a little disconcerting though. It was hard to carry on a conversation. The bridge was crowded with walkers even without the Volksmarchers. It was a great walk!