Tahoe In Fall

It is fall, and in Lake Tahoe, now that the Summer Tourists have gone home and the snow hasn't fallen yet so there are no skiers this means one thing: road repair. All the nasty repairs are finally happening, repaving in particular. Went in the fast car to drive around Lake Tahoe yesterday and got stuck in Road Repair hell. Half the roads around the lake are stop and go traffic, some with long delays and waits. I did not take pictures of them. It wasn't interesting enough to care about. But I did get to see the salmon run in Taylor creek. It wasn't much. That was pretty much over by the time we got there. Salmon runs are like that.

 Taylor Creek, South Lake Tahoe.

 Red Salmon Spawning. There's about 30 in this picture, but they're very camouflaged.

A couple more salmon. They're only about 14 inches long. Normally, Salmon only live in places where they can reach the ocean, and go out to sea for 3 years before swimming up river to where they were born and spawn, then die. Lake Tahoe drains down into Pyramid Lake, which is a trace of Lake Lahontan. These salmon are here due to an accident in 1944 involving fish hatchery spill. In more recent decades, there are 12 pound golfish (carp) living in the lake, big enough to eat.

This is why people come to Tahoe in the Fall. This is a wider view of the area of Taylor Creek, and the mountain north of it. This is the West Shore of Lake Tahoe. Btw, I found several easy places to launch small sailboats near Homewood, and parking too. I will probably come back there when I have a boat of my own. I am still mulling the advantages of a combined rowing and sailing boat compared to a light sailboat like a Classic Moth or a heavier but cheaper Sunfish or Laser. The lake was very flat early in the day but wind picked up by the afternoon and while most of the sailboats have been pulled out of the water (we passed many on the shore), it would have been a good day for it.

Classic Moth. Imagine this on Lake Tahoe for a couple hours. 

After seeing the pitiful showing of the salmon run, we drove through South Lake Tahoe, and around the Eastern Shore, searching for a burger joint. I eventually pulled into a place in Kings Beach (North Shore) and we decided they were both expensive and crappy so left instead of ordering. We ended up getting a small sandwich in Truckee and I drove us home. It was 66'F in Tahoe, 82'F in Truckee (no water to cool it down), heavily overcast as we crossed Donner Pass and 73'F up there, but warmed back up to 81'F back in Nevada City and home. As this is Octoberfest weekend I plan to buy a sixer of good beer to share with Dad tonight, and see if I can buy more of that good Chardonnay from Raviva for him. If they still have some. He really liked it. Dad was nice enough to let me drive his fun car. Doing nice things for him is something good I can return the favor.