Getaway

*Warning: no Brooke shots and lots of landscape shots in this post*

Each year, Matt and I have been able to take a trip for our anniversary. This year, we took a belated trip to Lake Tahoe, CA. I was not looking forward to leaving Brooke, but I knew that she was in good hands with my parents. Aside from choking up at the airport and spending at least 50% of the trip talking about her, I think that I did pretty well. I had forgotten what it's like to be able to read and sleep while on an airplane.

Matt's been to Lake Tahoe to ski a couple of times and told me how beautiful it was. I was eager to enjoy the beauty - minus the snow - in the summer. He did not undersell. It was gorgeous. I forget how FLAT the Midwest is.


After some debate on where we would stay along the lake, I won - I mean, we agreed - to stay on the northwest side instead of at a casino on the north shore like Matt wanted. We stayed at a beautiful, somewhat rustic B & B with beachfront access (thanks for the reference, Auntie Di!).

We went to dinner on the lake our first night there.


On our second day, we headed to Squaw Valley for some hiking. We decided to tackle Squaw Peak, the highest point at the resort.


It was only a 4.5 mile hike and we were feeling pretty good on the way down when we came to this sign:

(sidenote: the little boys behind the sign decided this was a good place for a bathroom break RIGHT after I took this photo)

Looks like you should be able to take a quick .8 mile hike down to the mountain lake, right? WRONG. We somehow got on the 2.7 mile STEEP trail down to the lake. Lake Shirley was beautiful, but by the time we got there, Captain Safety was so worried about the horrible climb back up that I barely had time to snap this shot.

Even with our detour, it was a great experience. That night, we headed to the casinos where we were up, went to dinner at the (gag) prime rib buffet, and proceeded to quickly lose our winnings after dinner. It was probably God punishing Matt for trying to ignore the 2-slice per trip maximum. Again, no photos so enjoy another one from our hike:

On Friday, we went white water rafting. I didn't get any pictures of this for obvious reasons, but it was a lot of fun. We rode some class 2 and class 3 rapids and our boat didn't flip over, despite the fact that the family on the raft with us were less athletic than I am (but very nice). You might think I'm exaggerating, but in the first 10 minutes of the ride, when we were just floating along not even paddling, Dad falls out of the raft and Junior loses his paddle. At that point, I was sure we were doomed. But, we got everyone back on the raft and while we definitely weren't the All Star boat, we had a great time. Here's another shot of Squaw Peak. Hey, with Brooke not around, it's amazing that I took any photos!

On our last night, we had dinner at Wolfdale's. I love restaurants where I feel like the dishes could be on Top Chef and this was one of those places. As usual, we had a ton of fun and it was great to get away with my hubby. Thanks for planning another great trip, Matt!