Tahoe

In only a few weeks, I’ll head off to Tahoe. It’s my very favorite vacation of the year. People think I’m crazy but I prefer Tahoe to just about anywhere.

There’s Tahoe itself, with its incredible water – cold, clear and clean — and its lovely clean sandy bottom instead of the muck you usually wade through in most lakes.

There’s the view: when you swim in Tahoe, you look around and realize that you’re in a huge basin surrounded on all sides by mountains and forests. (If you look towards Tallac, you can maintain this idyllic sensibility. If you veer slightly north, you’ll find hideous reminders that part of Tahoe is in Nevada: the top of Harrah’s casino peeking out of the trees. You must never admit that you saw this. In order to love Tahoe like I do, you must ignore the fact that part of Tahoe is in Nevada).

There’s that pine-y, Christmas-y smell.

And there are the Meadows: we stay in an area that has been somewhat sheltered from development. The meadows have been preserved. The roads were all dirt until just last year. The speed limit is still only 15 mph so it made for an ideal place for my cousins and I to learn how to drive.

Photo from http://www.tahoemeadows.org

The cabins in this area are generally rustic although that’s changed in the last 15 years. There are now some icky McMansion cabins with greasy owners, but these mingle with the old school cabins where half of the cabin’s square footage is a screened-in porch.

The Meadows also have two beaches that are only for those staying in the area. The beaches are only short walk from the cabin so you can blissfully go back and forth all day long.

Photo from http://www.tahoemeadows.org

But mainly in Tahoe, there’s family. This year marks my family’s 40^th year at the lake. My mom is one of seven and there are 10 of us cousins – many now married, some with kids.

And Tahoe is one reason why my family is so tight. Each year as kids, we spent 2 weeks with our aunts, uncles and cousins at the lake so we know each other. And if we’ve lost touch as we grew up, each year at Tahoe, we have a chance to get reacquainted.

Tahoe is leisurely mornings on the deck of the cabin where you fight with your family members over the crossword puzzle and the jumble (we are serious word game people). It’s swimming in the lake with my sister and trying to convince my cousin’s that it’s not too cold for a dip. It’s strolling back to the cabin still wet from the lake when we’re hungry or if the wind picks up. It’s my aunts playing Scrabble on the beach in the afternoon. Ending every day with a glass of wine at the beach for sunset and playing cards with my cousins late into the night, until we’re so tired we’re punchy and we laugh until we cry.