Lake Tahoe - South Shore

This past weekend I had the pleasure of hiking in Lake Tahoe where the residents are "keeping Tahoe blue" and the water is blue. The mountains are blue, the sky is blue, it's like a smurf exploded and the terrain was stained with various smurf remnants (I envision a smurf and all of it's bodily fluids being different shades of blue so this description is very fitting). It's very pretty.


Even the birds are blue (Steller Jays are very abundant).

The terrain is very rocky and there are a lot of dead and dying trees and while this seems a little bleak it's anything but. There is so much going on

with the flora and fauna... and I sound so very ignorant that I'm sure if the ranger I encountered was reading this she'd be murdering the desolation forest's fauna out of frustration. I learned on this hike that Giant Sequoia when you put your nose to the bark and inhale, smells like warm vanilla. This was incredible to me; As was a growth on a shrub Lidia saw while we were walking along a trail and when I went to inspect what exactly it was it punished me for my invasion of its personal space? I'll say I like being in nature but I do not like nature being in me. The evil dry shrub became wedged between my skin and muscle. The result of this was a most terrible and unsightly flesh wound. It was remedied, like my ankle, with tape. I know that Lidia can attest to the fact that when faced with this awful ordeal I put on the bravest face and hiked on like a superstar. However, when I got home to tend to the wound with soap and water I don't know if the same descriptor would apply. Unless you call someone wailing and crying out in the shower with every sud that rinsed over my leg "Oh Lord why me, oh why me...." a superstar. If superstar means drama queen, which it could, then maybe.

I'm alive, until the infection sets in at least, and hope to get to Tahoe when there is snow on the ground and will try not to get an icicle stuck in anything. I will let you know how that goes.