Today’s drive was from Salt Lake City to (South) Lake Tahoe, 576 miles and about 8 hours, a really pretty drive (Utah and Nevada have been my faves this far north) through surprisingly impressive mountains (I did not know that part of Nevada was so mountainous, but I suppose if I gave it a few minutes thought I should have). At two separate points in the journey, the outside temperature reached 34 degrees F in light snow. In late May.
Most of Northern Nevada seemed sparsely populated, until I hit the three cities of Winnemucca, Reno, and Carson City. After that, you approach Lake Tahoe from the east, then swing south along the lake until you get to South Lake Tahoe. It is here that I will lodge for the next two nights (Sunday and Monday). There came a moment earlier today, around 1PM local, when a sign along the side of the road said that Sacramento was 180 miles away. I won’t get to Sacramento until Tuesday, but as I drove, I found myself thinking that it would be nice to drive to Sacramento and then get on a plane tomorrow and go home. This is of course, Monday morning quarterbacking, as I had this option all along when I planned the trip and decided I wanted to have this little break in Tahoe. So I will make a good thing of it.
That started this afternoon, after I began my stay here at a Marriott time share property (that I could not spend points on, dammit) tucked into the middle of this very touristy shopping village known as the “Heavenly Village” shops. It turns out that this location is fortuitous, in that I needed to buy a sweatshirty/fleecy thing as the nights will be in the 30’s here and I have only short sleeve shirts and a light windbreaker. A few doors down…a Patagonia store was only too happy to part me from a small fortune for just such an item. Additionally, last night I ate Vietnamese food, and so I needed to get my steak on. There isn’t much of a steak scene here, and the places that were recommended had no reservations available during the time my system requires me to eat. But just across the way there was one spot—Kalani’s—that served a ribeye, had reasonable reviews, and a had a 5:30PM reservation open. Paydirt. Just back from that dinner, and I can recommend it highly. Pretty fair 14oz ribeye, and a ridiculously good brew of iced tea.
Prior to dinner, I availed myself of the 50 minute Swedish massage at the spa in the property. I don’t have any expensive hobbies. I really don’t have any hobbies, to be honest, but if I had one, it would not be expensive. But I am a sucker for a massage, and I probably get too many of them. I’m scheduled for one again tomorrow. I have this little ritual whenever I get a massage from a new person, and that is to identify the massage therapist’s “signature move”. No two massages therapists are alike, and at SOME point in a 50-60 minute massage, there will be some little move that NO ONE HAS EVER DONE BEFORE. Andrea’s (today’s therapist) move was as follows. Imagine the client is on his back, and the therapist is working the front of the legs. She approaches the leg from a right angle with her hands together in a posture of thumbs and index fingers touching, revealing a hole between the hands that settles down over the knee-cap. In a series of twenty to thirty degree arcs, she massages the area around the knee cap, first clockwise, then back counter clockwise. It was brilliant.
As this property is a few hundred yards on the California side of the CA/NV border, the vibe with respect to masks/social distancing is pretty much as serious as I’ve seen it on the trip (I have not acquainted myself with CA state directives and guidelines). I’d say a third of the people walking around outside have no mask on, but the rest do. Maybe that’s because this is a pretty densely populated little shopping village, or maybe because it’s California. I don’t know.
Pet Peeve
I’ve been pretty lucky on this trip not to have too many of my (many, varied, manic) pet peeves triggered. I’d like to talk about one of them. I despise the practice of shampoo/conditioner/bodywash dispensers hung in the shower, and there are two reasons for this disdain. First, I like bar soap. I just do. Sometimes they’ll have a mircobar set aside next to the sink, and I employ that for the more extensive operation. Second, I like the little personal size versions of these things that most (proper, first rate, clear-thinking) hotels provide. True story follows. I married my college sweetheart, a delightful, vivacious, and wonderful woman who should not have had to put up with my unformed immaturity. We separated around the time I was headed off on my next sea tour, so I returned to the condo I owned in Norfolk, and that had served as our initial love-nest. It was a two-bedroom, two bath job, and I had carte blanche to decorate it, as I was the only carbon-based life form living in it. My previous tour had been as an Admiral’s aide, and we did a TON of world travel. Everywhere we went, I grabbed the little bottles from the bathrooms when checking out as souvenirs. I had acquired a solid number of these items, and as I began to try and furnish an 1100 square foot condo with about 12 square feet of belongings, I hit upon the idea of putting a basin on the back of the toilet in my “guest” bathroom into which I would place all these treasures, so that when the (sure to occur) rush of visitors came, there would always be shampoo, conditioner etc. available. I was CONVINCED that this was the height of decorating chic and form/function matching. This practice followed me through the next fourteen years or so of varying states of bachelorhood, until the Kitten extended an invitation to me to join her on the Eastern Shore in 2008. Needless to say, not only were all the bathrooms already well-furnished, but the lady of the manor did not share my enthusiasm for this clever practice, and so it ended.
I’m not sure anyone ever availed themselves of the stash of treasures set before them to spice up their morning toilette. But dammit, it made sense.
Etc.
Me, trolling a bit on Twitter: