Mike and I like to hike. We like to hike on a bike or a trike...sorry I got caught up in the rhyming words of that first sentence. While in Tahoe - yes I'm still talking about Tahoe - we did a lot of hiking. We also did a lot of burning of our skin by the sun because we were silly enough to think that even though it's not hot temperature-wise, the sun can still indeed be strong. whoops. our ears have peeled. twice.
The hike down to Vikingsholm (a word I can not get enough of, and you really need to say it with gusto almost like you are singing it) is a bit steep. Like 500 feet straight down steep - but to be fair the park ranger said, "It's not STRAIGHT down." Clearly, we weren't hiking down an elevator shaft, lady. duh.
But it is a bit steep and I'm pretty sure the family that was behind us had a runaway stroller incident (never fear, the children weren't in the stroller) thought that the hike was steep. Mike and I on the other hand enjoyed it. We actually ran back up it...(however this isn't because we are that fit, it was because our checkout time in out hotel was quickly approaching and we wanted to go back and get a shower in before we carried on with the rest of our day. Luckily for us, our quick-like-jack-rabbit scaling abilities got us back up to the top, into the car, down the road and into a shower all in the nick of time. And we were able to not be smelly tourists for the rest of the day, which was pretty nice because we were going out to dinner with friends later on. (Pretty sure they appreciated our quick-like-jack-rabbit abilities too.)
Anywho, I've realized I've spent much too long on nonsense and I've told you nothing that we learned while at Vikingsholm:
1. It costs money to go inside Vikingsholm - since we were on a time crunch - we just looked through the windows. Same effect.
2. If you feed one goose, 12 million will be sitting next to you on your beach towel in a matter of nano seconds. It's true. We did not feed them. We witnessed it.
3. Vikingsholm was the summer home of Ms. Lora Josephine Knight. She and her husband were the prime financial backers to Charles Lindbergh's flight over the Atlantic. (And you thought you weren't going to learn anything from me today.)
[assessing the climb down]
[fannette island]
[vikingsholm]
[one giant tree]
See that little island behind Mike? That was Ms. Lora's island for afternoon tea. It was also the home of Captain Dick "Them's my toes" Barter - who was known for showing his self-amputated toes to guests. (I just learned that from Wikipedia...it was too good not to share.)
[probably my favorite picture of the day...who doesn't like to play with the reflection? :) ]
[we started the hike up there]
[please pardon the dark pictures - when you are in a rush to see everything, calibrating the camera accordingly really isn't in the cards.]
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