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The Road Trip: Lake Almanor to Lake Tahoe

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by Bob Sparrow

Don & Marjie on their deck on Lake Almanor

Our drive from Alturas to Lake Almanor was magnificent on this perfect-weather day, although I must admit that part of the excitement was knowing we were leaving Alturas.  We have never seen so many pine trees, both standing and being hauled by the many logging trucks we passed along the way.  We headed south on Highway 395, following the South Fork of the Pit River.  The road weaved through beautiful pines and incredibly large green meadows.  We could have stayed on 395, but, hey, this is a road trip and we saw that by detouring just a few miles out of the way we could go by Eagle Lake.  So we did, . . . not worth the detour.  We arrived and drove the main drag of Susanville, which didn’t excite us too much, so we got back on 395 South and were shortly in Lake Almanor.  We stopped to have lunch in the lakeside town of Chester and were given all the scoop on the area from Kathleen, the bartender at The Mt. Lassen Club.

Don & Marjie’s home from their dock

We were not prepared for what was to come next, we had arranged to meet friends and fellow Yorba Linda Country Club members, Don & Marjie Fryer.  They gave us directions to their home in a gate-guarded community on ‘the peninsula’ of Lake Almanor.  Before entering ‘the peninsula’ we drove past a most beautiful golf course, Bailey Creek, of which, Don & Marjie are members.  We drove almost to the end of the peninsula driving past beautiful home after beautiful home, until we reached the beautiful home of Don & Marjie.  The photos don’t do it justice!  They welcomed us with open arms and a mango margarita, and then we got on their boat and cruised the lake on this beautiful afternoon, looking at all the spectacular homes on this perfectly sunny, cloudless day. We came back to the Fryer home and sat on their deck and probably, I can’t remember now, had a drink or two.  We went to dinner at a local Italian restaurant with the Fryers and their friends Rex and Jan.  We sat outside, told stories, and laughed all the way through dinner.  Back at the Fryer Estate, we had an after-dinner cocktail as we watched the sunset behind Mt. Lasen.  What an awesome day!!!!

Sunset over Lake Almanor

Sadly, we leave the Fryer home the next morning and head to Quincy.  We wanted to visit Quincy on our way to Lake Tahoe because we used to vacation there when we were kids.  Jack, who has an amazing memory, told me to drive seven miles out of town, tuned down a dead-end road that had a store on the corner and low and behold, we found the old house that we used to vacation in, which was owned by the Schieck family.  After a drive down a long, dirt driveway, we tried to get the attention of anyone inside the cabin, but to no avail, so we headed back on the road to Tahoe.

When getting to Lake Tahoe we were going to visit the site of our parents ashes on Rocky Ridge, but the road was partly closed, so we decided to go to lunch, first at Sunnyside, closed until 4:00; then Jake’s on the Lake, closed, We looked to see if there was still water in Lake Tahoe!!  There was, lots of it!  So we went to an old haunt, Pete & Peters Bar, which turned out to be the best choice, as Jack, who lived and operated a restaurant at Tahoe for 14 years, ran into four people he knew and talked to a fifth person on the phone.  I just quietly drank my beer.

Jack at Pete & Peter’s Bar & Grill in Tahoe City with old cronies Yates and bartender, Dana

After lunch and a couple of beers, we headed down the west shore of Lake Tahoe, and drove by the cabin that was owned by our parents’ best friend, Dick Schieck, where we vacationed every summer for many years, we also checked out the cabin right next to it as that was owned my college roommate Ken Poulsen and me.  As we drove along the west side of Tahoe, we passed familiar spots like Rocky Beach and Meek’s & Emerald Bay, finally arriving at Harrah’s at the south end of the lake.  We got a nice room with a view of the lake and headed to the casino, which was rather dark and dingy.  After a quick donation at the craps table, I joined Jack at the only black jack table in the casino, but it wasn’t really black jack, the dealer was still in the game if he got to 22!!  After the slow torture from a hot dealer, and $150 later, we decided that luck was not with us today in the casino.  A quiet dinner and to bed early.

We woke up early the next morning (another perfect day) and looked forward to our trip to the ‘Mother Lode Country’, home of Mark Twain’s, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calvarias County, which was just the weekend before.

Next blog: Road Trip: The Gold Country and Back Home Again

 

Posted in Family • travel

Circumnavigating Tahoe

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by Bob Sparrow

Emerald Bay

Lake Tahoe. Just the name brings so many great memories rushing back to me. As those who read here know, we have a long history wth ‘The Lake’ and usually try to get up there in October, when most of the tourists have gone home, to visit our parent’s final resting place. Brother Jack & Sharon and their families went up in July, but we were in Europe at the time so we figured we’d make it up next year, until Jack & JJ Budd, long-time travel companions, had a timeshare week they had to ‘use or lose’ at the Marriott Timber Lodge at the base of Heavenly Valley in South Lake Tahoe, and invited us to join them.  We happily accepted.

Sunnyside deck on a summer’s night

The weather was crystal clear; in fact we never saw a single cloud the entire time we were there. The air however was very crisp during the day and more than crisp at night as temperatures dipped into the 20s and high teens. We decided to take a drive around ‘The Lake’, starting the drive up the west shore. The first thing I noticed was the lake level; years of draught had lowered the lake so much that no water was going over the spillway that creates the Truckee River. Now, due to record snowfall in the Sierras last winter, the lake was as high as I’d ever seen it. As we drove past Emerald Bay I recalled the hikes we did from there up to Eagle Lake and the great views it provides. We weaved our way past Meeks Bay, where I could still smell the Coppertone sun lotion our mom use to put on us – in fact I can’t smell Coppertone today without mentally going to that great sandy beach at Meeks Bay. Just prior to getting into Tahoe City at the north end of the lake, we took a quick detour up Chinquapin Lane and drove by the cabin that Uncle Dick bought in 1951 (Suzanne, sorry to report that the picture of our ‘Aunt Marilyn’ is no longer on the cabin wall). As we drove by, so many memories were rushing through my mind. How lucky we were to have such a ‘Summer Place’ in which to play while we were growing up.

Lakeside lunch at Garwoods

We continued up the road less than a mile before we came upon Sunnyside Lodge – now a very haute destination, but back in the 50s it was a rustic lodge/bar with seven rooms and only two bathrooms, one at each end of the hall, a combination liquor store/bait shop and a small marina where Jack and I would fish using drop lines from the pier (and never caught anything!). Today, Sunnyside sports the largest deck on the lake and is the spot to be on a beautiful summer’s day or evening. Continuing our journey, we drove through Tahoe City, where Jack owned The Off Shore Bar & Grill right on the lake, and continued up to Rocky Ridge, which offers the most spectacular view of Lake Tahoe I’ve ever seen and is the final resting place for mom and dad. We checked in with them, soaked up the amazing views and continued on our way. We stopped for lunch at Garwoods, which is one of the only places at the north end of the lake that offers lakeside lunch dining during this ‘shoulder season’. We sat outside on the deck in amazing weather and had the best fish & chips on the lake, or anywhere except Scotland as far as I was concerned.

Visiting Mom & Dad at Rocky Ridge

As we continue our trip, we leave California and enter Nevada and stop by CalNeva, a once very popular hotel and casino on the lake where Frank Sinatra was once one of the owners and the ‘Rat Pack’ made regular appearances. Mom, Dad and Uncle Dick would dress to the nines on a Saturday night and go ‘over the line’ (the California-Nevada border) for an evening of dining, dancing and gambling at CalNeva and come home way after we kids were fast asleep. Today there is a fence around CalNeva as it is in rehab, or rather reconstruction. I’m hoping it will, in time, return to its glory days.

We continued down the east shore, which is mostly Nevada State Park with very few signs of civilization, although it has several spectacular beaches. Between Zephyr Cove and Glenbrook is the Cave Rock Tunnel, created in 1931 and the only tunnel on the trip around the lake.

We pulled into Stateline, south shore Lake Tahoe completing our trip that covered not only the 72 miles around the lake, but the 65-some odd years of wonderful memories.  It was a good day!