This September I had a work conference in beautiful Reno, Nevada.
I reminisced about those Epic days when I worked with the Renown hospital system. I haven't been back to town for ~15 years and it felt exactly the same! ;) Love that the airport seating comes with warnings that it is unsafe to play on their chairs.
I needed to get up before the crack of dawn to catch the earliest flight out of town on Sunday morning. The goal was to make it to Nevada in time for a Tahoe cruise!
Worth the early wake up! Here I am with my co-worker Colette.
The weather was perfect, the water was so blue and the views were spectacular. This excursion was sponsored by a vendor and you better believe that I picked up a captains hat with their logo. Fun for the trip, perfect for the dress up bin at home - win, win.
I learned about lots of new technologies on the horizon.
This device took an image of my face and then sketched my portrait. Hmmm ...
Colette and I had a great time! Here we are with one of our former FCP account managers.
Of course I ate some delicious desserts!
Had to snap quick picture in front of the famous Reno arch ;)
When I attend these type of conferences, many of the exhibitors hand out swag. One of the most popular items to give away is men's socks. Dan gets a year's worth of these colorful IT vendor socks from yours truly. Wife of the year, for sure! I had to take a picture and show him the haul!
Back at the ranch Dan was holding down the fort and zipping kids around to their various activities. Lucy has had an amazing cross country season this year, getting PRs at almost every race. Proud of her!
When the conference ended on Thursday afternoon, I stayed because Daniel was coming to town! Woohoo! We were eager to have a weekend away in Tahoe.
While I waited for Dan to arrive I took a walk around the Arboretum.
This park is no where near an ocean but they had a crazy Under the Sea theme going on!
I snapped some pictures to share with Leo - he loves all of these critters!
Everything was so bright!
Oh yeah there were other magical kingdoms on display too! What a fun spot - there were lots of mamas pushing strollers or walking with small kids through this space. Love it!
I said goodbye to the ocean life ...
... and headed downtown to find our hotel for the evening. It was the cutest historical building.
The room was above a bar ... have you ever stayed in a space that had ear plugs and a noise machine ready for you? Eeeks! Spoiler alert - it was loud.
Dan arrived and we had dinner at the Depot brewery, right across the street from our hotel. This was another lovely historical building, built in 1910 as the headquarters for the Nevada - California - Oregon railway. The food and drinks were great and my date was very handsome.
On Friday morning we stopped for breakfast pastries on our way out of town. This ham and gruyere croissant was the best!
We left Reno and made the quick drive to California - we spent the morning at Donner Memorial State Park.
A couple of years ago I read 'The Indifferent Stars Above - The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party" by Daniel Brown. Highly recommend but fair warning - it is very detailed and graphic and did give me nightmares. So, when we were in the Truckee neighborhood you know that I wanted to stop by the park. They have a very nice little museum on site. We watched a movie and toured the space before heading out for some hikes.
Here is Patty Reed's doll - probably one of the best known artifacts from the Donner party incident.
Oh yeah - they also had some nods to the local wildlife.
The plaque on the monument reads 'Virile to Risk and Find; Kindly Withal and a Ready Help. Facing the Brunt of Fate; Indomitable, - Unafraid.' During the Winter of 1846-1847 the snow depth at Donner Lake was between 15 and 20 feet. The Donner Party was trapped by early, heavy snow and the pass was impassable. The rest is history...
The Donner Lake area is so pretty.
The roots and stumps by the water's edge were twisted and gnarly
I zipped over to the restrooms and I saw this PLAGUE alert posted on the wall. Ummm ... yikes! Watch out for these chipmunks!
We enjoyed the lake, admired the steller's jays, and had a picnic.
We left Donner State Park and our next stop was the Tahoe Rim Trail.
Just look at that majestic Lake! We had a great hike - the elevation increase here was no joke.
Love being outdoors with my favorite guy.
Evidence that we were on the right path.
We stayed in Tahoe City and our hotel was just across the street from the cutest wine shop. We zipped over for a glass of locally sourced vino - it was so good! Cheers to the weekend!
We had a top notch dinner too! We got the best / coziest spot in the restaurant with a great view of Tahoe.
On Saturday morning we went to Emerald Bay State Park.
The scenery was awesome!
It was the perfect September day.
We walked by Vikingsholm - a castle down by the Lake. So cool!
We saw lots of butterflies on this day.
We couldn't have done this trip without the help of Grandpa Ken & Grandma Nola! They kept us posted on weekend happenings like Roman's football game.
Can't forget about the little siblings club! ;)
Our next adventure was the Desolation Wilderness Area.
We made it to Eagle Lake! WOW!
What a magical spot!
By the way - Got lots of compliments of my Packers shirt! Go Pack Go!
We finished our hike and gave up our highly sought after parking spot. ;) We drove around the entire Lake until we got back to Tahoe City.
And just like that, we were headed home.
What a week! Big thanks to Ken and Nola for watching these kiddos of ours; such a treat to spend a time away in such a special spot.
