Bill and Steve's Tahoe Adventure

Sunday afternoon was quite warm and sunny in Sacramento, and the idea of visiting friends up in Lake Tahoe sounded like a good idea at the time. Despite the forecasts of snow it just didn’t look that bad from the valley floor. So, against our better judgement, my friend Bill and I set off to have dinner with our friends, George and Dave, who were already up in Tahoe.

We sailed past the poor folks installing chains on their two-wheel drive vehicles with our fine 4-wheel drive Volvo but things soon came to a halt and it was slow going all the way up the hill. The snow was coming down pretty heavily, the winds were swirling around, and the driving became decidedly ... interesting. The odd jackknifed truck, and the occasional car off the edge of the road, made for slow progress and what is normally a 2 hour trip took us 5-1/2 hours. Still we made it unscathed.

Of course, the next morning the car was under considerable snow as you can see below and it needed digging out. Just another chance to play in the snow.

Bill, Steve, Dave and George

Unfortunately the trip down the hill to Sacramento was more than we bargained for – another 5-1/2 hours of slow going, but this time livened up with a little unplanned slide across to the other side of the road narrowly avoiding the Truckee River and an oncoming car, and then the loss of one of the windscreen wipers (I abused it too much when trying to free ice from the blade and it just fell off). Again we made it but, I think next time I will wait for better weather before being so adventurous.