We climb 6,500 feet and see the fireworks
Trip Start
Apr 18, 2007
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Trip End
Oct 16, 2007
Gardnerville,
Nevada,
United States
Thursday, July 5, 2007
We managed to get everything in...JUST and headed up I-80 climbing all the way into Reno which is set in this barren high desert wildnerness surrounded by mountains. Somewhere along the way we went thru the Donner Pass at 7,324 feet meaning we climbed about 6,500 feet from Roseville. The scenery is fantastic but we're almost blase about such things now.
We drove on thru to Minden/Gardnerville (they flow into each other) in 97F heat - it's higher so hence cooler than the 104F expected in Roseville today, and had a rather poor McDs before pressing on to our resort hotel overlooking Lake Topaz about 14 miles south of Garnerville
Hill from our room
. We flashed the platinum card and ended up in the suite room which is MASSIVE. It has a jacuzzi in one corner and the most amazing view overlooking the lake with the mountains in the background. It was very hot and our room had not had air-conditioning on all day....so we sweltered and paced the room not knowing what to do with ourselves. It is a heavenly place but somehow it's difficult to take a holiday from a holiday. We used the laundry and everything was dry before we got it back to the room.
It's Independence Day today and the Yanks go in big time for fireworks. Lake Tahoe is famous for its casinos and they fund a HUGE firework display from pontoons in the middle of the lake. It is supposed to be one of the five best displays in the whole US. Suffice to say that even after 250 mile trip to get here we HAD to go....little realising the amazing route there.
The road to Tahoe starts from Gardnerville with a drive of a mile or so across the valley floor - we'd driven all along this valley when getting to our hotel - there are mountains either side but the valley floor must be 3 miles wide or so. At the end of this drive you start to climb the mountain - it's steep and never-ending
Housing estate cramped in amongst space
. They have 1000 foot markers along the way - we came across 5,000 ft fairly soon and topped out at 7,324ft at the summit. It was then just a short drive down to Lake Tahoe which is about 6,500 ft.It wasn't too busy in South Lake Tahoe - we don't like Tahoe much at least the stateline area with Hurrahs. There aren't many places to eat and those that are to be found are very expensive. We ate on the veranda of an expensive hotel as the evening drew in and found that the best view was from a nearby beach that was already packed.
We decided that taking forever to get out of Tahoe after the fireworks wasn't smart so we drove back to our mountain road and parked up on one of the side roads. There were laods of people sitting arround along the road and we found we had an excellent position overlooking the lake some way up. We met an elderly couple and joined then using our deck chairs.
Turns out we were some way back but could see all the display - it was spectacular but would ahve been better if we had been much closer. It was a trade-off.
The drive back down the road into Gardnerville was amazing - like coming into land from the flighdeck of a plane. The whole valley floor seems to have housing on it based on all the lights.
We got back to the hotel circa 11.30pm and saw the tip of the moon on the opposite mountain range...we couldn't believe it as we actually saw it rising - like physically seeing more of it in real time as the earth turned. We saw it rise from just the tip to fully above the range in less than 5 minutes - we're going to try and get it on video tomorrow.
