Lake Tahoe

Wednesday 19th September We want to look at the lake today, without too much rushing around, so we are planning to drive a little way up the lake to Tahoe City, for a coffee and then come back and visit house/mansion that is in the grounds of the Sugar Pine S.P. Ou plan started well, we drove gently northwards along the lake shore towards Tahoe City, stopping to admire the lake, which is beautiful. However things changed a little when we pulled in to a lakeside cafe. On parking we noticed a number of people acting in an animated sort of a way. It is a pattern of behaviour we have seen before. People stopping and looking, yet remaining animated, not sure whether to approach or retire. That said "Bears!" loud and clear. Anyway we joined the group and inquired and sure enough, down on the edge of the lake a large Black Bear (but brown in colour) was enjoying a morning dip in the lake. For our protection a local sheriff was watching over the event, so we felt safe to approach closer and take some good pictures. By now about a dozen people were standing watching the bear, mostly tourists like us, as loclas are used to this. After a while a second officer came along and explained to us that the bear had to be moved from the public beach to a local woodland area. Their sophisticated game plan was to use a rifle with rubber bullets to drive the bear along the beach to a road that lead to the woods. So having fired at it the bear just swam along the beach and disappeared back to the woods, leaving us to go and hove our cup of coffee in peace and safety. The officer suggested that bears are in fact not dangerous (unless hungry, trapped or you are between them and their cubs) and behave like big pussies, which I was willing to believe completely, all the time the officer was there. I did however learn a slight improvement on the strategy of how to avoid being caught by a bear, the standard being to make sure that you can run faster than at least one other person. The new strategy is more subtle. Always make sure that you are in a position to be able to trip someone up at the vital moment, before making your exit at a more leisurely pace. Following that excitement we were then able to go back to Syds Cafe for our quiet morning coffee sat overlooking the lake. We drove back along the lake hsore to the Sugar Pine S.P. and turned towards the lake and the mansion that was in the grounds of the State Park, in fact the grounds of the mansion is the State Park, about 2000 acres of garden and woods and lakefront. The Sugar Pine Mansion was a turn of the century summer retreat (they had several) of the found of the Wells Fargo Bank, so cash was not in short supply. We took the tour of the mansion, a large wooden construction with eight bedrooms and seven bathrooms, when it was built the access was from the lake, so it was wonderfully secluded, with great views and nicely tended gardens sweeping down to the lake. After our tour we sat by the boathouse and had our lunch, inevitably talking to some other visitors, one couple were especially nice, and they were our next door neighbours in campground, so a short lunch break turned into an pleasant afternoon chatting. We are very impressed with Lake Tahoe, which is very big and very beautiful. It comes a close third behind Crater Lake and our next stop - June Lake.