Settling.....

We are in a short term cooling trend, which may, or may not involve rain in the next few days, but will definitely see temps in the 50's and 40's, and over night lows in the low 30's.  I'm not complaining.....at least there is no persistent wind.  Once we started our nomadic journey a little over 2 years ago I was determined never to spend a summer anywhere it would get over 100 degrees....even for one day.  I have had a lifetime of those kind of summers, and really prefer it to be in the 70's....I'll even take 80's on occasion.  The average summer temps here in the Tahoe Basin rarely get into the 80's, and that is usually late summer.  It's mostly in the 60's and 70's.

We decided a leisurely bike ride would be in order for Sunday, so once I had our Cannondale singles tuned and lubed we headed out east on HWY 50 towards Stateline to familiarize ourselves with the local area as far as eateries, services, thrift shops, etc.  We encountered a little wind as we rode east, but it was blowing from the west, so it was pushing us along at a pretty brisk pace.  

At Regan Beach....notice the snow in the background

We stopped off at Regan Beach, which is just about mid town.  Back in the late 80's we spent about 8 days sitting on this beach when our kids were still wee ones.  It is very shallow here, and you can walk out a 100 yards, or more and only have the water come up to mid calf on your legs.  A great place for young kids, and, of course, the views are long.  We are basically looking due north towards Tahoe City at this spot.

We found a few thrift shops open, and made note of those that were closed to visit on another day.  We visited one thrift shop that specialized in used sporting goods where I found a very nice putter (golf club) for $5....a much nicer one than I got at the Goodwill, plus they sold used golf balls for .50 cents each, so I picked up 8 Top Flite's.....not sure how long that batch will last, but now I have an endless resupply source for replacement balls just a couple of miles from the campground.

We stopped just short of Stateline and turned around heading back to the "Y" (intersection of US 50 and California 89) to then head up HWY 89 towards Camp Richardson.  Of course, the wind that was pushing us was now in our faces.  This area along US 50 through South Lake Tahoe forms a sort of wind tunnel and seems to magnify the velocity of whatever wind there may be, so at times we were heading into a pretty stiff headwind.

After checking out a couple more thrift stores, and adding to our list of eateries we want to sample over the next few months we headed to Raley's (regional supermarket chain), which is just a block from the campground, to pick up a few items.

I spent the rest of the afternoon putting up our decorative lights, and then tuning up Debby's Townie Beach Cruiser.  The last time I worked on her bike back in Cedar Key it had some serious issues including a bent derailleur hanger that was affecting the shifting of gears.  That was about a year and a half ago.  This time all the bike really need were some minor adjustments, and a good cleaning of the drive train (front and rear sprockets, derailleur, and chain) and all was good.  Nevertheless, I spent a few hours checking everything out while watching the conference final game between the Miami Heat and the Indiana Pacers (NBA), which the Pacers won handily to take a 1-0 lead in this best of 7 series which will determine which team goes to the NBA finals.

Around 5:30 I got out the BBQ and grilled up some carne asada TLE had bought at the Carson City Trader Joe's the other day for that evening's installment of "Street Tacos".  Even at 5:30 the temperatures had already dropped into the low 50's in advance of the approaching cold front, so I had to bundle up in order to grill the meat.

We watched a recorded episode of "Survivor"....next Wednesday is the finale....and then the finale of "The Amazing Race", followed by the season finale of "The Mentalist".

That was our second day in South Lake Tahoe.......in all the years past, going back to the early 50's, the longest we would stay at Lake Tahoe was 2 weeks.....always wishing at the end of our sojourn that we could just stay the entire summer.  Now that dream has come to fruition, and here we are with 3 months to go.

Thanks for stopping by!