Traded the Suit and White Dress for a Tahoe Adventure

I love the mountains.

Growing up in the Midwest, I didn’t exactly have exposure to mountains, so when I moved to Virginia I remember being totally amazed by Shenandoah Valley. When Adrian and I were deciding on a honeymoon spot, we agreed somewhere with mountains would be all we needed. He doesn’t like the beach — like at all. And even though I do, it wouldn't be my first vacation choice anyway. So Lake Tahoe was an obvious choice for us.

We flew into Reno, Nevada and landed around 9:00 pm. It was dark out and we weren’t expecting the drive to South Lake Tahoe to be so, well, winding. Our rental car had a "safety" feature that would beep every time you went over the center line, and let me tell you, that car was beeping the whole entire hour as we drove around sharp turns with drop-offs that we could barely see in the dark. So that was fun.

The first morning we woke up it was 26 degrees (wasn’t really expecting that either) but we immediately went in search of beachfront in order to see the lake. These were the first pictures we took that trip; definitely a breathtaking moment.

We tried to make this as relaxing of a vacation as possible. I am a go-go-go type of person and Adrian definitely enjoys kicking back and doing nothing sometimes — something I can’t quite get the hang of — so the plan was to explore in the mornings and afternoons and save the evenings for breweries and general relaxation (and by that I mostly mean drinking). We didn’t really have a plan, so we looked up hikes online when we woke up and, on the first day, ended up at Eagle Lake Trail mostly because it looked simple enough to start and still seemed to have amazing views. We couldn’t have been happier with our choice. The trail was pretty easy (I wore jeans, silly me) and I have never felt as close to nature as I did sitting on the edge of Eagle Lake. It was a beautiful day, and the water truly sparked like I have never seen.

One of my favorite things about our honeymoon was that whenever someone on the trails asked what brought us to Tahoe, Adrian would answer “We are honeymooning!” — for some reason I just thought that was totally cute. In any case, everyone on the trails were super friendly and we even met a couple at Eagle Lake that offered us their trail guide book. It was so kind, but we totally couldn’t accept it. The book was tattered and worn and I knew that it had been in their backpacks and gotten them through some fabulous days together. We ended up taking some pictures of the pages and wrote down their advice and went on our merry way. The couple had suggested we go to D.L. Bliss State Park and hike part of the Rubicon Trail, so the next day that is exactly what we did.

DL Bliss brought quite the variety of scenery. Parts of the trail winded through dense forest, and other parts followed right along the cliffs over the lake. There were legs of the trail that felt so abandoned that we were honestly afraid of crossing paths with a bear. Funny thing is, later in the week Adrian would be desperate to see a bear and would mozy on into the woods searching. Ugh, men. Anyway, on this trail we met another couple who I will never forget. After talking for bit about the area, we discovered they were visiting for their daughters destination wedding. Their daughter was 26 years old — same age as me — so maybe that’s why we hit it off so well. The couple had lived in both Detroit and Cleveland (woah) and the gentleman was a biochemist (WOAH). We had lovely conversation with them and again went on our way, smiling from the encounter. This proved to be another glorious and beautiful day.

As I mentioned, our nights were definitely filled with eating and drinking. By this point, we had already discovered our pizza place in town and had also visited a particular brewery a couple of times. I already felt like a local in this place. And per usual, I wouldn’t go anywhere without getting some ice cream, so here I am in my element — a moment captured perfectly by my new husband.

The only part of the trip that was totally and completely planned out was the third day: Mt. Tallac. I got teased a couple times for my nasally pronunciation of the peak, but that couldn't bring me down. I was so looking forward to this day. Mt. Tallac is a part of the Sierra Nevada mountain range and stands at 9,735 ft above sea level, with a 3,290 ft total elevation gain. We started out pretty early, and from the very beginning were stunned by the views.

For as much of a planner that I am, I did not plan properly for this day. First of all, Adrian was wearing $15 Wal-Mart tennis shoes. Seriously. And check out all those rocks. Second of all, I packed two bottles of water, some leftover sushi (what was I thinking) and only three granola bars (two for Age, one for me). We started out drinking the water pretty fast and quickly realized that we were nowhere near summit, so began rationing. When we stopped for “lunch” on a big rock, we ate the sushi and soon realized that we had nowhere to discard the trash, so we ended up putting a leaking soy sauce smelly sushi platter back into our hiking backpack. Oh, and we only had one backpack, which Adrian insisted on carrying most of the way. Later in the hike, I insisted on carrying the pack because “I’m just as strong as he is.” Apparently, he has stronger lungs, because after ten steps with it on my back I couldn’t breathe, and after laughing at me he agreed to continue carrying it. What a gem.

This hike was honestly the most beautiful and probably the most intense thing I have ever done. We passed through forests, cliffs, rocks, hidden mountain lakes, and again, made some friends on the way. When nearing summit, I could only manage like ten steps at a time before stopping for air, and after what seemed like two hours of saying “Oh my God, we have to only be five minutes from summit,” we made it.

We stopped at the top for a while to take it all in, relax, and eat the granola bars (which were not enough — but hey, my hanger started to go away a little bit). I scared Adrian by climbing on rocks I probably shouldn’t have climbed on, and letting go when I probably shouldn’t have let go — oops! After taking ample time to take in the views, and almost finishing all our water for the day, we started to head back down, excited that this would now be the easy part. All in all, I think our trip was about 12 miles total and took us somewhere around 6 hours. When we got to the parking lot we encountered a couple guys setting up food for a group hiking on the trail. They congratulated us and offered us water. THEY WERE ANGELS, I TELL YOU.

And, on the final day...we rested. Seriously. Hardcore resting. We went to the creek to see the salmon spawning, 'cause who doesn't love some good ol' salmon sex and went searching in the woods for a bear — to no avail.

I think this trip and this day will be hard to beat. We tackled our first mountain as a married couple, how neat is that.

(Mt. Tallac from the bottom)