South Lake Tahoe Trip - You Can't Go Home Again
July 19, 2025
We took Dario up first to go to Lodi - my cousin Chuck and Cheryl - had a wonderful time on my birthday at their lovely home. They had a barbecue, good times, good company. The next day, we headed up 88 to South Lake Tahoe. Dario danced amongst the gentle curves and beautiful scenery up the highway - ran beautifully. I was imagining a cartoon image, as I took the turns, of the car actually bending around the curves. Sure felt like it!
We got there and were too early to check in; the owner of the home where we stayed had the carpets cleaned that day and they were not quite dry. No problem. We drove over to Tahoe Keys to see how it looked. We went there every year when I was a kid. We drove over to the place where we stayed several years in a row, and walked around a little. It appears that they no longer rent those places as summer vacation stays. People now are living there. I had found a couple for rent when I was looking 6 months ago, but the price for a week was my rent for a month!
We drove around a bit more, and I was surprised at how many homes had been built and there was one home on Venice Drive with a couple of Corvettes in the driveway - one of them was a '65. That made me smile. By then, we could go check into our place, so we drove over to the home - just east of Al Tahoe. The host greeted us and suggested that instead of parking in his usual "guest parking" on the street in front, to park in the driveway. He didn't want anything to happen to my Corvette. He showed us the suite, and it was beautiful and as described.
The next morning, I had a goal: To play my hammered dulcimer at sunrise on a beach. There was a beach right down the street, so we headed over there. We had to park a few blocks away and walk. When we got to the 'beach' access, the public part consisted of one bench in front of a wrought iron gate with a "Private Property" sign on it. Great. We spent the next hour trying to find a nearby beach and came up empty. Everything was private, or, if there was a public beach, there was no parking available - everything was marked "customer parking only" "guest parking only" etc. We drove out towards Camp Richardson to Pope Beach - didn't open until 8am and had a $12 parking fee. Yes. American Money.
We returned to our lodging, and I googled beaches and found a nice sounding beach and we scouted it out. It was beautiful, uncrowded, and had free parking. We knew we had found the place for me to play at sunrise the next day!
I was very disappointed, to say the least. Next thing for that day was for us to go up the Heavenly Valley tram (or so I thought). I had reserved "gondola" tickets a month ahead of time. We drove up there and I was noticing that we were not seeing the tram going up and down the mountain. It is clearly visible from just about anywhere in South Lake Tahoe - a quick glance would spot the red cars going up and down. That should have been a clue. When we got to Heavenly Valley, I kept seeing signs that said "Gondola access...(some address on Lake tahoe Blvd. which is what hwy 50 is called passing through South Lake Tahoe). I didn't know what that meant. We walked up to where the Tram was, and a guy who worked there told us they don't run it during the summer. What? For YEARS it ran all year round', taking visitors up to this nice restaurant halfway up the mountain.
Not anymore.
The 'gondola' was something I had to pick up from some new place called Heavenly Village. Off we went down the hill to this Heavenly Village.
Heavenly Village resembled Santana Row to me; upper class stuff, and we saw the gondolas going overhead, but where we were supposed to board them remained a mystery. They had a parking garage (more money) and valet service. Nope. No one is going to valet park my Corvette.
By this time, I was fit to be tied. Another thing had gone right out the window. Now what? We just chilled for the rest of the afternoon. Kind of sucked that we drove up to Tahoe and wound up mostly watching Netflix and Prime. Could have done that at home. For dinner, we opted to grill some chicken on the provided grill on our little patio area.
I haven't mentioned the traffic jams. EVERYTHING was a "Cone Zone" up there. Seemed like every 4 blocks, there would be a lane closure, and there you would sit. It was as if the Bay Area just did a transplanted itself with all of the BS traffic up at 6200 feet. It was not fun.
The next day, Wednesday, we set out at 5:30am with my hammered dulcimer to go to the coveted beach. It was beautiful! No one was there except for us (at first). I set up and tried to get my instrument in tune. Not so easy but it was okay. I was there - on the beach - with the glow of the sunrise appearing, coloring everything in different pastel tones. There was a beautiful meadow behind us and mist on the water with mountains as a backdrop. It looked like the subject of a jigsaw puzzle.
We took video and many photos and I was playing "Here Comes the Sun" but I think the tension that had mounted in the preceeding day screwed me up and I kept messing up badly on my playing. I'm pretty bad when I am on video though; that is a fact. We stayed there for about an hour and then headed back to our lodging. On the way back, we stopped at McDonald's for some breakfast. I know, not very healthy, but we were on vacation.
We were in the drive through, waiting for our food, when all of a sudden, my car was bumped from behind. What in the living...all I could think of "Corvette - bump - fracture- fiberglass - MY DREAM CAR IS RUINED" and my husband leapt out of the car to deliver some choice explatives to the driver of the giant raised truck behind us. Unbelievable. He said he "didn't see us."
LUCKILY there was no visible damage (a tiny scratch) but, since the car is fiberglass, I have to get it checked out - there might be something we can't see. The guy argued with me that he barely tapped me. I said true, but we can't see everything; only a body shop specialist will be able to determine if there is no damage. The situation was not good and they tried to get me to accept an expired insurance card. They got into gear when I dialed the police dept. Sheesh.
Nice trip, huh? We were supposed to get on electric bikes and ride around that day, but I was completely deflated. I needed to process and get past that ugly incident so I could put it behind me. We took off to drive to the North Shore. I really wanted to see Emerald Bay up close and personal and maybe drive around the lake.
That didn't go well either.
We were relatively early on the road - 10am - but again, the Cone Zone got us. Every few miles, there was road construction. Emerald Bay's vista point was a tourist nightmare so we went on by. We got into Tahoe City eventually, and it was even more packed than South Lake Tahoe - and we had to put gas in the car - and it was over a dollar more a gallon! We headed back. The Cone Zone nailed us, yet again, with one way traffic control. We waited for about 20 minutes in a line of cars before the "pilot vehicle" appeared to take us through. Going by Emerald Bay on the way back was even worse - every tourist from every corner of the world seemed to have arrived. Finally, we got back to South Lake Tahoe and to our room, and I took a nap. We chilled, and I went and got a pedicure (a little self care goes a long way).
That evening, our last night there, I saw a nice place for dinner on a pier. Ooo - let's go. It says it isn't busy - we are early! So, we drove a couple of miles down the road and found it. Guess what?
NO PARKING.
There was one spot that I couldn't fit into comfortably. The only available parking was around the corner. No. We wound up eating at a hole in the wall place at "The Y" which was pretty good, but a hole in the wall - you order at the counter kind of place. So much for eating at the pier with the lake view and all of that.
Thursday morning, we happily packed and headed home. It was a nice trip through the mountains - Dario got to do some more dancing. We have a few logger trucks but it was a good glide down out of the Sierras until we got out to the flat land again - highway 99. All of the aggressive warriors were on the road - on 205 there were two cars racing - flat out racing- swerving in and out of traffic - and it was heavy traffic. Idiots. I got off the road and we went back roads the rest of the way.
So, it was not the trip I had hoped for at all. I blame myself for putting out expectations that it would be something it wasn't. When I was younger, I really wanted to live there eventually. I'm so glad I didn't try to follow that dream. I considered South Lake Tahoe my home away from home for so long, but now I really know the meaning of "You can't go home again."