Lake Tahoe

On our way home from California we headed east over the Sierra Nevada mountains and stopped at Lake Tahoe. Cyndi and her friend Mark came with us. I really wanted to take David to a place called Vikingsholm. It is this beautiful old house/castle right on the shores of Lake Tahoe. There is a really cool story about it that you can read at the website. I have very fond memories of going there as a kid (my mother loves Lake Tahoe). I also remembered the trail, a series of switchbacks down the mountain from the parking lot at the top. In my mind I remembered very steep and very long. So when I saw on the website that there was an alternate trail, I thought it was a brilliant idea. The website said it was .7 miles longer than the regular trail, but not as steep. They did point out that the regular trail was wider. I talked everyone in to the long trail. Foolish foolish girl! We made it to Vikingsholm, but it took us almost two hours. It was a beautiful trail that overlooked the lake and Emerald Bay, but it was a TRAIL, like the kind you should wear hiking boots for (Cyndi and I both had on croc flip flops and Anna had on her clogs). There were roots, rocks etc, on a narrow trail that had a steep dropoff to one side almost the whole way (I was terrified of Anna falling and held her hand the whole time). We were exhausted when we finally got there. Anna was the trooper throughout! She hiked all but the last 100 feet, and without complaining. To demonstrate the difference in the trails, on the way back David took the same trail back to the car, but Anna and I went UP the regular trail where he came with the car to pick us up. It took Anna and I only a 1/2 hour to get to the top! I felt really bad that I had taken up so much of our time on the trail, but we did make it just in time for the last tour of the day of Vikingsholm

The lady who built it wanted everything to be true to the scandinavian architecture, including the furnishings. All the lumber was milled at the north end of the lake and brought in on barges. My favorite when I was a kid was the roof of the garage made out of sod with grass growing on it. Anna liked this clock lady, the beach, the water, and this stick that she found. She gave me half of the stick when we headed up the trail and we used them to hike to the top, which she loved. I called her my little hiker, and she called me her big hiker. It was a beautiful day. We'll have to go back and take the easy trail next time:)