Tough Row Tahoe

It was almost cruel to spend the weekend on the north shore of Lake Tahoe last weekend.

We enjoyed dry, cool, sunny days and clear cold nights. In the evenings, we sat on the balcony of our hotel and watched the blue water deepen in color and the moutains melow in the fading sunlight. We paddled down the Truckee River and walked up and down Tahoe City's main drag. We drank dirty martinis in Frank Sinatra's Cal-Nevo casino. We leaped from rock to rock at Eagle Falls and stared in wonder at Emerald Bay. We had an amazing dinner on Sunday night.

Then we went home to harsh, humid days and work and the hundred little things one must do around the house after a vacation. We played a dirty trick on ourselves when we escaped to the Sierra Nevadas, a tantalizing glimpse of what could be that only made the jagged reality sting the more.

Would we do it again? Absolutely.

While I was gone, I read Rory Stewart's The Places In Between. His book chronicles his travels across Afghanistan in 2002. He walked the entire way and spent his nights in the villages he stumbled across. It was often dangerous and never dull. He was accompanied by a "retired" war dog that a villager gave him, a mastiff-like beast he named Babur (after a historic Afghani king who made a similar journey hundreds of years before). The two of them encountered people who were often ignorant and sometimes frightening (he traveled through the country just after the US invaded, and many locals were once loyal to the Taliban or Al-Queda). It is a fascinating look at a troubled country and highly recommended.