September 8 – Grace’s 23rd birthday. I woke her up and informed her that I was 23 when I got married, which was a scary thought.
By daylight it was a lot easier to see where we were. I mean, we knew where we were (the Granlibakken near Lake Tahoe) but it had been very dark and confusing the night before. The Granlibakken felt very much like a ski resort.
The view from our room, which was modern with a European feel:
After breakfast we started on our drive south along the western edge of Lake Tahoe. I wanted Grace to see this area, because it’s not easy to get to from the East Coast. I hadn’t been there in more than 30 years. It’s still very pretty.
I was determined to stop at Emerald Bay, because I remembered it having lovely views. Unfortunately there was construction and a long wait before we could pull into the parking lot. Then a long wait to get OUT of the parking lot, and they forced us to go back in the direction we came from, make a u-turn, then wait in the same long line again. Not completely sure these photos were worth it. Grace was irritated at me for stopping.
I knew I had an old photo of Dave at Emerald Bay, which I’ve scanned above. Could it possibly be the same dead tree from a slightly different angle?? Maybe Dave was sitting near where the people are in the left of Grace’s photo. I certainly took Dave’s picture looking back toward the hills. As I snapped shots of Grace, I thought that if someone had told me 32 years ago that I would be standing on the same (more or less) rocks taking a photo of my daughter on her 23rd birthday, I would have been very happy. With any luck, perhaps in another 30 or so years I can take a photo of my grown grandson or granddaughter there.
This was the line of cars that we waited in twice. At least we were someplace pretty.
At the southern end of Lake Tahoe we headed west, through the lovely Eldorado National Forest, but we didn’t stop at all and I don’t have any photos of it. Pretty soon we were back on Route 80, heading through Sacramento and on to the Bay Area. Along the way we passed this strange sight:
After hitting a fair amount of traffic near Berkeley, we drove over the Bay Bridge, through San Francisco and south to Emerald Hills near Palo Alto, where Grace’s Aunt Kate lives. We met Dave there. Despite the time change, he gamely went into the city to celebrate Grace’s birthday with Grace’s friends Malenca and Ellen. I was absolutely beat and had just spent almost every second of the past six days with Grace, so I figured we could take a break from each other. I had a nice quiet dinner instead with Kate and my nephew Chris.