Lake Tahoe-- Anniversary Trip

(By Michael)

Stephanie doesn't get much time off.  I split my time between my job as a lawyer and my job as a dad, but she's pretty much always on duty as mom. 

For our anniversary in August, we planned a day off.  Even better, it was a day off for Stephanie and me together, with no kids involved.  Now that might not sound like much, but from the day that Eliza was born until our August anniversary, Stephanie had spent exactly zero nights away from the kids.  When she was at home, so were the kids.  When I was studying and she took a few days for a trip, the kids went with her.  When I was on campouts with the Scouts or travelling for school or work, the kids stayed at home with her.  So being away for a whole day and night was something new.  Thankfully, I have angel parents that the kids love, so we weren't even worried about them while we were gone.  Well, I wasn't worried about them; I'm sure Stephanie fretted now and again, because that's just her nature.   

We left Thursday to drive up to Lake Tahoe.  Several months ago, a busy and generous friend had called noting that she had time share points that were going to expire unless she made a reservation immediately, and offered to let us use them instead of letting them go to waste.  Thus, we arrived at a beautiful little resort on Thursday evening, with no children.  They would arrive on Friday evening with grandma and grandpa, and we'd all play together on Saturday.

We walked around the resort, noting the amenities and what surely would have been a lovely view if not for the huge Rim fire near Yosemite that had been blowing smoke into the Tahoe basin for weeks.  As it was, all we could barely see was a very large, very clouded, very red moon.  I've seen red-tinged moons before, but with the air so thick that all the cars in the parking lot were coated in a layer of tiny ashes, the moon was completely red.  The haze thick in the air during the day and the lunar affect at night was a perfect illustration of the Biblical description of the sun being darkened and the moon being turned to blood.  Not very romantic, but a very good physical depiction of that verse.

Since there was nothing to do outside, we spent the evening inside and, you know, watched movies and stuff.

The next morning we had intended to get up early and spend some time on the lake.  Like a lot of early morning intentions in our family, it had been cheerfully discarded by the time we were up and ready to go.  It was mid-morning when we headed out, aluminum canoe strapped to the top of the van.  We stopped by a few thrift stores on the way, to pick up a jacket for Stephanie and other odds and ends, mostly because it's hard to pass a thrift store without stopping.  Our plan was to start at Kiva Beach and canoe up into Emerald Bay, a smooth paddle of a few miles along the shoreline where we could enjoy the undeveloped mountain scenery and the beautiful water of Tahoe. 

It wasn't exactly like that.  For one, the smoke had not cleared much during the night.  It was less heavy, and you could see further than the day before, but it was still thick enough to prompt yet another health advisory to keep people indoors for all but essential tasks.  Having booked this trip months in advance, our getting out on the lake was an essential task.  The one advantage of the smoke was that most other people stayed home; it was easy to find a parking spot and the beach was sparsely populated.  If we had a choice, we would have preferred more people and less smoke. Tahoe usually takes my breath away.  That day it only made me sneeze.

From our spot on the beach we could barely make out the rocky points marking the left turn into Emerald Bay.  The narrow place where the bay joins the rest of the lake is marked by two rocky outcroppings.  We decided to go about two miles straight across the lake to the entrance of Emerald Bay, instead of hugging the shoreline in a longer, slower route.  Actually, maybe I decided our route.  I'm not sure if it was mutual.  It might have been a poor decision.  By the time we passed the shallow water buoy, the water had turned choppy, and Stephanie was tense and nervous.  That's one of the reasons we had initially planned on being there early in the morning.  Early mornings generally have smoother water than noontime.  I was sitting on the seat on my end of the canoe, facing our goal.   Stephanie was sitting on the floor of the canoe on the other side, facing the shore we were leaving.  The canoe was poorly balanced at best.  With the increasing chop in the water, it felt like a capsize waiting to happen. 

Stephanie had gone from nervous to terrified.  I can't remember the last time she was so visibly uncomfortable.  It may have been before I knew her.  As the shore behind us faded into a hazy outline and the swells grew to nearly a foot in height, I was a tiny bit apprehensive myself.  My confidence was reinforced when I remembered that just twenty years earlier I had earned the Canoeing merit badge.  I had swamped and recovered a canoe, and I was pretty sure that even if we did go over, it would just be long, tiring, and uncomfortable at worst, probably not actually dangerous.  When I explained to Stephanie that she was paired with a canoeing expert, she actually calmed down a little, and calming down made all the difference.  We paddled together better as a team, and picked up speed, which helped us cut through the water more steadily.  When a motorboat passed nearby, we turned the canoe to avoid the broadside of its wake, and bounced around a little until the waters calmed again.  It was fun.  There was just enough risk to keep us on edge, but it was actually really fun.  In fairly good time, we made it to the entrance of Emerald Bay.

The view was not what I had hoped.  Emerald Bay is one of the most beautiful scenes on earth.  From our vantage point on this particular day though, we couldn't see the shore on the far end.  Up close, we could see the rocks and trees and down into the clear Tahoe water.  Lifting our eyes, though, at a mile out, we could barely distinguish the grey sky from the slightly darker treeline that jutted up into it.  The whole world felt small and secluded, and even the sounds of the lake seemed muted.  We found a sandy spot of beach and pulled the canoe up to take lunch.  I don't like to admit the stiffness, but I could tell that I wasn't a teenager out on the lake.  After lunch, we climbed around and explored the mountain for a while.  Before long, it was time for us to head back.

The return trip was easy.  The wind had died down, there were fewer motorboats on the lake, and the water was smooth.  We passed a group of kayakers, and the Tahoe Queen paddlewheeler, but there was no one else on our part of the lake.  We did tip the canoe once.  Just a few hundred yards before we reached our beach, we pulled out to check out another sandy spot.  Re-launching, we were careless and we both ended up in the water, but shallow enough that we could stand.  It couldn't have happened at a better place.

We were mostly dry when we got home.  We had stopped by one more thrift store on the way back, because apparently that's what we do when we have no schedule and no obligations.  We didn't buy anything, but we looked.

Then it was time to get dinner ready.  Soon enough, grandma, grandpa and the kids would be arriving to spend the night before a big play-full Saturday.   

Eight years later, we're still living happily ever after.