We visited Split Rock.

On July 22, I wrote that the day before I left on Amtrak with my nine year old boys to embark on a vacation to Donner Lake and Lake Tahoe. The train had left a little late. When we boarded the train, I know I took two naps but I was not exactly certain when. I started writing and then I took a nap but at that point the train… I guess it was in the Yuba Canyon someplace.

One of the boys was being weird in the observation car so I decided that we needed to return to our seats and I gave them their iPads. I know I took a nap then. I woke up someplace near Donner Pass. I had a coke while watching the view from the observation car. The boys tried to have some of my drink but by the time they had it, it was gone.

At Soda Springs we looked at the sights and as the train we descended into the Donner Lake we packed up. When we got off, I took the boys to the Mexican restaurant even though I have started to bring food for the trip as back up. The plan of course is to eat it eventually, but it is just there to make certain we have something.

One of the boys spilled his root beer but it turned out OK. It wasn’t too hot outside but the mess fixed itself pretty quickly. We took the local transit service, TART Connect, to the Donner Lake Campgrounds. It is a free ride share offered locally. When we arrived, I selected one of the two backpacker sites. We set up the tent and I put everything away.

We visited split rock and I got some cool sunset pictures. I texted with friends and siblings. Everyone missed me or asked for pictures. I was overly chatty. I texted a picture to my family’s group chat. My older sister, who lives in Reno, told us that she wanted to see us the coming Saturday as we were winding down. So, I spoke to the boys and we agreed to go to Tahoe city the next day so we could be back at Donner Lake to meet her.

When we settled in, I realized I really needed to go to sleep. Strangely, after the boys had nodded off in their tent, a police car drove through. I was in the sleeping bag at that point and for some reason they needed to lean out of the car and say there were bears… Or perhaps they said “They were bears..” I wasn’t entirely certain but I knew that it would work out. It was overcast as we feel asleep and it even rained a little bit.

When we got up in the morning of the day that I wrote this, I had the boys break the site down as soon as we were able. We were all really groggy. I had a can of cold brew ready in my food stash. Sadly, the boys didn’t want to move around too much.

We eventually got everything rolled up and packed. It turned out we had enough room in our bags and the boys kinda were learning how to do it on their own. We walked to the entrance station for the park and I paid for our campground. We then walked to Cold Creek and caught the bus to Highway 89.

I looked at the post office when we got off and it was closed for some reason. We went to Starbucks where I showed them pictures of Olympic Valley. As our travels usually involve a lot of active travel (bikes, transit or walking), it can sometimes take a while to get them focused on the trip. I often have to use incentives like ipads or cookies. However, there are always moments with they don’t want to stop using their iPads or they lag and say everything is boring.

I put effort into reviewing the bus schedule and was miraculously able to get us onto the bus to Tahoe City then. When we got to the Tahoe city campground, the host gave us the ADA because the hikers in the hiker site were the no-good-rowdy-troublesome kind. The boys pitched our tent. One of them wanted to sleep outside – like his dad does–but I said no.

We stopped by Safeway then and went to the hotel across the street where I ordered a last minute reservation (they were booked solid for that night). After that we returned to the campsite and paid. I noted that the host was really nice. We walked the lake trail to the playground. I saw a pizza place on the way.

The boys loved the climbing wall at the playground. There were a lot of other kids there too. There was some private corporate party on the beach. However, it was overcast enough that there wasn't much novelty to being there. Occasionally there was even a little bit of rain.

It was pleasant and we had a lot of fun though. I let the boys run off and found something else to do. I think that the boys were embarrassed I was near them due to the number of kids around.

Later, the boys and I walked the trail to pizza, which was good. The dining room was really busy and we ended up sitting on the veranda. I walked around the restaurant and discovered there was a whole unused dining room upstairs– for special parties, I assumed.

We returned to the playground and got some ice cream. The sunset alpenglow on the tallest mountains above southlake was beautiful. I noted that my older sister was actually across the way at Sand Beach for an ABBA cover band.

We walked back to the campground and the boys got in their bags. I took the time to start writing.
This is an occasional series chronicling my life. This Notebook Analysis series is meant to be contemporaneous piece developed as an agglomeration of my notebook pages. In each of these posts I used my notes to develop my recent thoughts.