Tucked away in a back alley full of seedy inns and lodges, this one was refreshing. It’s just two blocks from the bustling main street of South Lake Tahoe, where all the restaurants, shopping, music, and casinos are. The bright green, brand new signage – which first drew us to this hotel – stands out on a street full of yellowed ones. The place looked quite new. Our room was nice, had a TV, coffee pot, wine stems and a chilling bucket (no ice though, no wine either) and the bed was comfy.. so comfy that we spent a lot of time in it

For once, we made sure we had an early start from home (or hotel, as we’re now staying at the Homestead in Sunnyvale). I was super-worried about traffic all along, it being the beginning of a long weekend, and don’t we all know what happens on the route from Bay Area to Tahoe on all weekends! We were on the freeway by 7.30ish.. super early for us, since we’re weekday 10 o’clock wake-uppers. That helped, and we cut the usual 4 hour drive time by an hour and arrived in Tahoe, cruising at 75 mph all the way, around 10.30ish.

I had mock-booked a hotel the Friday before (just in case) (gave them the debit card number minus 5 plus 4 to reserve a room) and it was on this same street but it looked way too depressing for us to even venture in. We walked around, evaluating a few other equally shady looking hotels and settled on this one.. The only disappointment was the pool – they have one but it was swimming with leaves and bark of the eucalyptus above. No issues.. since the lake was just a couple blocks away anyway.

They let us check-in right when we arrived, though the regular check-in time was 3 pm. Score. The shower was awesome. I love the pins-n-needles feeling of sharp jets of water on my back and I had just that. I was in there for a while after bubblegum left. We headed out around lunch time and found just about the most crowded lakeside restaurant possible. It was right next to the Lakeside Marina, gosh, can’t remember what it was called.

Googled it. Internet connection’s super slow here. Will fill in this _________ when the connection fires up again. ___Lakeside Beach Grill and Marina___

Yeah, so it was the most crowded restaurant and we saw just one wild-haired woman/man (pony tail, hawaiian shirt and shorts, no boobs, guess who) taking orders. Two reminders, some fretting, and half an hour later, we hadn’t seen either sangria or sandwiches.

Two blocks back to the hotel, a half hour later, we headed two blocks in the other direction.. towards the main street. Found a charming little restaurant called the Driftwood Cafe. Isn’t it a lovely name for a cafe? And they had driftwood, starfish, ships-in-bottles and all sorts of Blyton-ish paraphernalia hanging around.

The menu looked tame – the regular sandwich-salad cafe – until I spotted something unfamiliar. Escargot. Sounded like fish, and the description was nice. Served with green onions, garlic and butter. It turned out to be snails. Before the waitress could finish saying ‘Snails’, I said ‘Yes.’ I’ve dreamed of eating snails since I read a Three Investigators (Mystery of the Two-Toed Pigeon, I believe) way back when I was 12/13.

And the snails were purrfecto. I hated that they were swimming in butter, and that the butter had all the green onions and garlic mush in it. So if I wanted the good mush, I had to drink some of that ugly melted butter. But the snails more than made up for it. Yum.

We walked about a mile after to work that butter off my round-n-shiny belly. Found a shady nook of a beach and parked ourselves. The view was breathtaking and the sun made us barmy. We took a little nap right there on the beach before heading back to the hotel. With some beer, baby carrots and spinach parmesan dip, we were set for the night.

Unfortunately, we had some very loud neighbors the next morning, and woke up unnaturally early for having had such a late night. We took the day to drive all around the lake, about a 72 mile loop. When choohe in the tummy beckoned, we found a rustic cafe that served watermelon shake (oh, if only we’d known it would come with milk.. ack) and grilled chicken pesto sandwich (can’t go wrong with that, eh).

The water in Tahoe is simply stunning.. the blue is emerald like in postcards. The sailboats and private piers are as picture-perfect as possible. Rippling around my ankles, the early September water felt cold but not chilly as you’d expect so far up north here. In fact, we saw a lot of women peeling their clothes on the beach, and propping themselves up on ashy elbows. A lot of kids were in the water, splashing around and wobbling on the smooth stones at the lake’s bottom.

We hit the casinos that night. Blew $2. We’d learned our lesson back in Vegas last October. This time, we were here just for the cocktails. Unfortunately, Harrah’s, Harvey’s and Montbleu didn’t seem to be giving out free cocktails, at least not to those of us wandering around the penny slots. Sigh, w/e.. Too bad we had to shell out for beer and cocktails in a casino! Vegas, heart you for saving us booze money.

Kayaking was the only thing on our agenda the last morning of our weekend. By the time we got down to the water though, it was already quite late and we could only rent the kayak for an hour. Also, we had to sign a stupid form saying we wouldn’t venture deeper than 200 feet off the shore, and when we got 200 feet off the shore, the water still just about as deep as half my shin. We could actually stick the paddles to the stony bottom and push the kayak forward, it was that shallow. Disappointed, we kayaked far west at least a mile beyond the beach where we’d started off. At least we could go into deeper waters without being spied on.

It was already 1.30 when we got back to the hotel, two hours after regular check-out time. We took a quick shower, packed up and went down to the reception to leave the keys, only to find a notice saying we should leave the keys in the room. Cool, we took off just as the sun was beginning to warm the morning chill away.

Predictably, there was a lot of traffic all along US-50. We picked up a cute Argentinian hitchhiker on the way, which helped pass the time, not just coz he was really cute but coz he was smart and a great conversationalist. So a regular 4 hour drive took us about 6 hours on our way back, thanks to the traffic. And we stopped at Arup’s swanky new apartment in Pleasanton to say hello. Made impromptu plans for a swim, rushed to JC Penney for a swimsuit, and swam a little.

Arup promised us dinner but then backed out, crazy fella. We had tacos at Taco Bell past midnight on our way home.

Fun weekend, I tell ya.

The roads are so wide, Indian city roads look like dirt tracks. The trailers are enormous; Indian trucks appear puny in comparison. The distances are so vast, a car ride seems to take you from one state to another. And the cars are so fast, the cities swirl by in a mist, before you’ve had the time to read its name on the signboard.

And the signboards are so big, and so well-lit – even if all they do not have anything to announce after all. Its when the car slows down to take the next exit and you get within sniffing distance of a signboard that you see the cracked and broken bulbs behind the snaky letters of the neon sign.

And as the days go by, I noticed that the big Mc I was living on does not have such a shiny gold plating after all. And the sesame seeds aren’t sesame at all, but just chips in plating.