We got into Tahoe Wednesday night (felt like a Sunday to us). The next morning we took it easy and hung around the house. Wanda’s family has a cabin up there which we’ve been to many times. Tahoe is our favorite place to go skiing (our next trip out to California will surely be in the winter), but there’s lots to do there in the summer too. We rented a power boat for one afternoon and cruised around the lake. We went into Emerald Bay and Wanda, the kids and I hopped off the boat and swam to an uninhabited rocky islet with the relic of a castle at the top. The water was cold and the air was thin, and Michelle, even thought she was wearing a life vest, was nervous and clingy, which made it hard for me to swim. Wanda coaxed Michelle to swim toward her, and once Michelle let go of me she realized she could float and swim no problem, which made things a good deal easier for me. We climbed up to the castle on the top of the island, which was pretty cool. We spent the rest of the afternoon tubing – one person riding in an inner tube towed behind the boat. It was a fabulous time. Once everyone had had their fill we went back to the marina and hit the bar. It seemed the trip was complete and things couldn’t get any better.
That night we went out dinner and afterward Jeannie and Wanda went to the casinos on the Nevada side. I’ve never been a big gambler myself, except for a stint when I first moved out to Silicon Valley and had a friend from M.I.T. who had been part of their famous card counting club and was starting a local chapter in Palo Alto. I learned the system and did well enough when we were practicing in his house, but when I got to a real casino the dealers were trained to never leave cards face up a moment longer than necessary, so simply getting a look at all the cards was the hardest part. It soon came to feel like hard work and not any fun, and so I gave up blackjack. I still had some fun at roulette, but my pattern is to bet only on single numbers so I either win big or run out of money in a hurry. Jeannie on the other hand, likes to play the slots and is good at losing slowly, making $20 or whatever last a whole evening. This night she got lucky and won a few hundred dollars, a great surprise to be sure!
The last day there we went out to breakfast, hiked around the waterfront and played a few more games of Dominion. Drove back over the pass into the central valley and back to SF. Shortly after we left, Wanda spotted a bear walking thru their yard! We got back to SF in time to go up to Coit Tower, although the cold and fog were still in effect. Had one last dinner on Pier 39 at Jeannie’s favorite seafood restaurant and replenished our pilfered chocolate.
Our final morning we had time for one more sightseeing jaunt. We took a walk down to San Andreas lake, along a trail in Burlingame, near the airport. Jeannie and I had happened upon this place our vary first visit out to California shortly after we got married, so the place has a special memory for us, and closed the trip with a nice symmetry. I’ll have to compare or recent pix to the ones we took all those years ago.
We got to the airport in good time, although the lines were plenty long. For some reason (traveling with children maybe) they let us to the front of the line for security. We had time to get lunch at the airport – chowder in a sourdough bread bowl. Then when we got to the gate they upgraded us to business class, which meant extra-big seat, and another lunch, and some really good wine.
Next up: pictures
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Back in the world it’s much too real. Things at my job have gone from completely chaotic to somewhat more organized but under high pressure to make up for lost time. I recently updated my resume but decided to wait until September to start looking for a new job, mainly because I’m taking most of my time off in the summer and so it’s a bad time for it. Now the end of this long slog may be in sight, so I’m somewhat hopeful things could get back to normal soon. The day after tomorrow we’re doing a release candidate build. We’ll see how things play out.