Lake Tahoe and Gold Country

Here are some pics (OK, a lot of pics) from our trip to explore another part of California.  It is pretty awesome to live so close to great vacation spots.  This summer we decided to do a little exploration of gold country and Lake Tahoe.  The plan was to check out Sutter's Mill and the gold discovery state park, go whitewater rafting on the South Fork of the American River (on which Sutter's Fort was located), and then spend a few days in Lake Tahoe playing on the lake.  We didn't like the place in Lake Tahoe very much and the boys were too young to drive any motorized watercraft - so we changed plans and spent a couple nights in Squaw Valley (we pricelined a great deal at a 4 star resort from our not-so-great place in S. Lake Tahoe.)  So, we spent more time on bikes than on the water.  

We did the Chili Bar section of the river.

OK, this isn't us, but this is what we would have looked like had we waited for the river photographer to load her photos, burn a disk, and charge us $60 for it.  So, just pretend....

Auburn, CA - pretty darn cute town in gold country.

Boys in historic Auburn, CA where there was a Monday night festival.

Statue of a prospector panning for gold.  Looks like Davis is digging for something else.

Most people see antique mining equipment.  Davis sees a "light cycle" (Tron reference) circa 1850.

Sign says "Mormon Cabin".  Sutter's Mill

Sutter's mill site on the American River.

Lake Tahoe

Nathaniel was the only one interested in getting in.

Biking in Van Sickle Bi-State Park (that means the park is in two states: CA and NV)

Taking the gondola up Heavenly Ski Resort.

This made me want pie even more.

Overlooking South Lake Tahoe

After eating high altitude chili dogs and chicken fingers, the boys weren't super excited about hiking (blech).

Why is there a ladder up here on top of the mountain?

It's sad to see them grow, but even more sad to see them shrink!

Nathaniel "downhill" mountain biking at Northstar Ski Resort, Truckee, CA.

Wild flowers border the very dusty trail.

Davis and Nathaniel play in the Squaw Creek Resort pool.



Davis tosses Nathaniel in the air.

A great place to relax.

Nathaniel runs...

jumps...

and splashes!

Nathaniel said it isn't weird for parents to go on the water slide with their kid.  He didn't say that it is such a small slide that a parent is too heavy to slide down without pushing yourself along.

Through the chute.

splash down

Davis' favorite activity of the whole trip - driving the golf cart.

Squaw Valley - a very pretty place.

It's not really a vacation unless Chris is able to golf.

Dinner at the resort.

S'mores around the fire.

Cozy place when the sun goes down.

Mountain biking (cross country) in Paige Meadows (Lake Tahoe).

The cell phone camera only picked up the white flowers.  This meadow was full of so many different colors of flowers.

Fun single-track biking through meadows and forests.

Root of All Evil

Do you remember this tree?
http://cagarners.blogspot.com/2011/04/story-of-eucalyptus-tree.html

Well, it has taken a very long time to clean up after it.  We moved rocks (really big rocks) from all over the front and back yards to stabilize the hill on the corner.  We used a winch, cable, a dolly, and boards to ski the rocks across the grass.  It was hard work and took a few weeks to actually get them all moved out front.

Davis helped us move rocks around the yard.

The rock "skis" across the grass while Chris cranks the winch.

Placing the biggest rocks first.

Building rock cairns with rocks that haven't been embedded in the hill yet.

While we were digging places to set the rocks we found huge roots left over from the eucalyptus tree.  We chopped, sawed, dug, and also tried to pull the roots out with the winch.  Crazy.  One root was not going to budge.  So, it was time to take drastic action.

 We banked the fire with rocks all around and covered the top with the grill cover so you couldn't see any flames from the road as it got dark.  We stayed outside watching it for a couple hours until the coals died down (it took a long time for the flames to settle down because the eucalyptus bark has a lot of oil in it).  While we were outside we saw a police patrol car drive by 4 times - each time from a different direction through the intersection.  Oh yeah, we didn't have a permit for this.  It was like they had received a call that someone in the neigborhood was building fires in their front yard...  So, either they never actually saw the fire, or they saw it was little and that we were watching it (from the front steps) so they didn't want to bother with it.  We ended up leaving it burning overnight.
  In the morning it was still smoking but the root had burned through enough that a couple of blows with the sledge hammer broke it off.  We thought we were getting off easy having the tree blow over in the storm and the city cleaning up most of it.  It took another day of digging to get all the auxilliary roots out so we could place the rocks.  Now we have to finish putting in the sprinklers around that area and then we can plant.  
  Nothing to do with the root - here's a picture of the new quilt Chris' mom made that we are "storing" on our bed (It's not good to have quilts folded for too long so it's best to lay them out flat and Carol didn't have room to lay this one out on a bed at her house.)  Isn't it great?



Tim Burton at LACMA

I took some (not allowed) pictures at the Tim Burton exhibit at LACMA.  Pretty interesting.  Despite the many complaints, I think Davis really liked it.  There were lots of illustrations that Tim Burton had done as a teenager.