Creamsicle and the Beardless Woodsman: Day 2

Today was an emotional day for Seymour, the finest Ford Focus the world has ever seen (named after the best grandpa the world has ever seen). Let’s just say that Reno is at about 4,500 ft., and the pass she (Seymour) had to go over to get to Lake Tahoe was over 8000 ft. Not to mention that she had to carry mine and Vaughn’s fat asses, along with all of our luggage from two and half months in Yellowstone up that hill. I’ve never heard Seymour moan and cry like she did up that hill, but she made it!! And boy was she excited to see that it was all downhill from there. She just purred like a kitten the whole way down the hill in neutral. When we first saw the lake from up high it looked enormous, and was surrounded on many sides by snow-capped peaks. It’s kinda like Jordan lake back home but bigger, 100X nicer scenery and, not only is the water not dirt brown and murky, but it could be the clearest lake I’ve ever seen (it rivals Jenny Lake in clearness). So we worked our way down to the lakeside and decided we wanted to do some hikes on the south side of the lake. As we drove around the lake, we hit a line of traffic that did not move more than 20 ft. in 15 minutes, so we decided not to waste the day in traffic and turned around to head back to Kings Beach which we had already passed. Because of our honed sense of cheapness, we were able to sniff out a free parking lot right across the street (literally) from the pay lot and the beach (we also ate another lunch of Oreos and Miss Vickies salt and vinegar chips saved up from EDR bagged lunches). I am pretty talentless, but I am blessed with the insane ability to save money. The weather was 72 degrees and sunny, so our decision to swim was a hard one. After a long contemplation period, we decided to go for it. The water was a bit chilly but so clear and beautiful and comfortable with the weather. We had a nice relaxing time (yes, Vaughn let me relax!!!) tanning and flipping over to tan the other side and then flipping back over and doing our nails and talking about the new romantic comedies coming out in theatres this summer. We then ate our summer salads and put our wide-brimmed hats on to shade our faces. After our relaxation time, we headed on to foggy San Fransisco. The drive from the lake was again emotional for Seymour, who made it up another tough hill, but luckily had 40 miles straight of downhill after the climb. While coasting down for 40 miles, Seymour had some good self-reflection time and started to realize that there's always gonna be another mountain, she’s always gonna wanna make it move, always gonna be an uphill battle, sometimes she’s gonna have to lose, ain't about how fast she gets there, ain't about what's waitin' on the other side…It's the climb!!! (Seymour is apparently from the south because I certainly didn’t teach her to say ain’t). With the weather as gorgeous as it was, I decided that I would go windows down, because we only get a day or two a year in NC that’s good for that. Little did I know that my hair would become majestically wind-swept like, for example, I guess a prince riding a stallion. About 4 hours later we made it to San Fran and David, Vaughn’s uncle, was nice enough to take us out for Thai food. Poor guy…little did he know how much we could eat. We ordered fried tofu with peanut sauce (the sauce was basically honey and peanuts and deliciousness), a beef curry dish, a chicken and spinach and broccoli and squash and carrots dish with a curry type sauce, and pad thai. We all shared the dishes and did they ever hit the spot!! The only thing better would have been the sweet and sour chicken from the Snow Lodge EDR. I then accompanied Vaughn to his doctors appointment and read People Magazine while he was getting checked out (I read it because I thought it was some sort of sports magazine, not because I thoroughly enjoy celebrity gossip). After that, we headed back to David and Scott’s (David’s partner) house and unpacked and relaxed for the rest of the night.

Tip of the day from Don’t Sweat the Small Things:
“Learn to live in the present moment.”
“Life is what’s happening while we’re busy making other plans.” – John Lennon