Surprise Valley stretches 20+ miles from the CA border. I'm sure there's a story involving a miner and his/her burro behind the name, but our biggest surprise was to realize we'd been there before--some 25 years ago on our way home from a Toastmaster convention in Reno. Same basque restaurant in Alturas.
Honey Lake. . . this aptly named dry lakebed goes on and on, and reminds me that such a counter-intuitive phenomenon (lake=arid & dusty) is surprisingly beautiful in its own right. Lake Tahoe surprised us in a not-so-pleasant way. The roadside view of this sapphire and emerald colored jewel is obliterated with nearly wall-to-wall upscale structures, at least along the west shore. Public access be damned. We found a couple blessed "viewpoints" that allowed us to actually see the lake as it was meant to be seen, but even they were heavily concreted, dog-on-leash, and sadly "improved." A third surprise--after a long haul of nearly 300 miles on two-lane highways-- was that our BW room in Placerville was 3x the size of the one we had in Lakeview for the same price. Today will be a slower "poodle-doodle" day (as brother Sid would say.) Day 3 destination is the home of Cousins Mary Lou & Bill in Tuolumne. . . only 80 miles down this Road to Texas.
No comments:
Post a Comment