Nevada: September 22, 2012

Damon drove us to McDonald's this morning, where we had breakfast and I caught up on a couple of days of this blog. It is quite annoying that our hotel charges $12 per day for wireless internet! After breakfast Dianne and Damon drove back to the hotel; I walked back when I ran out of battery.

Today Joni (Dianne's cousin) treated us to a ride up Heavenly Mountain in the gondola, and it was a real treat! She had free passes because her son is a ski instructor here. Thank you Joni and Owen!!

We were all in the same car and took photos on the way up.

We could see Heavenly Village below us, and Lake Tahoe--we were impressed with the beauty of the lake and the distance around it that we rode yesterday on our bikes! We stopped at the observation deck at 9,123 feet in altitude.

Here we all are: Joni, Roz, me, Lehua, Dianne, and Damon. I bought a couple of books for the grandkids at the store at that level, then we got back on the gondola and rode to 9,136 feet, the location of Tamarack Lodge. At that level you can choose whether to ski in California or Nevada!

We had a picnic in the rarified air and sunshine. Dianne's cousins brought a bottle of wine, some salami and cheese, chips, crackers and dip--it was a real feast!  After the picnic we walked over to the chair lift to continue up the mountain.

After exiting the chair lift we walked up to the top of the mountain, 9,817 feet. From this vantage point we could see mountains all around us, and smoke from the fire still burning in the valley far below us. (Yesterday we saw helicopters carrying fire suppressant to that fire). 

We took a lot more photos on the way down the mountain, and marveled at what a wonderful day it had been--blue sky, high clouds, bright sunshine.... what could be better than that?!

We had cocktail hour in the cousins' room and then took a cab to our dinner out. We thoroughly enjoyed our dinner at The Fresh Ketch. This was our farewell dinner, as the cousins leave tomorrow and Dianne and I will meet our bike tour group and begin the next adventure.