Rockin' Socks and a Hot Date

One of the fun things when Grandma and Grandpa visit, is that hubby and I get to go on a much needed date. This time we went on an all day trip to Lake Tahoe and the kids had fun with Grandma and Grandpa. One of the things they did was play out in the sandbox behind our house. This is D, A and J.

They also got to play with the cool Lincoln Logs that Grandpa made for my nephews many years ago. Here's A, J, D and Grandpa putting a house together. By the time they were done, it was quite interesting with the girls' additions to the roof! LOL

This is a horrible picture of us...I was having a major bad hair day and eyes puffy from allergies, but Mom made me have a picture, so here we are together, ready to set off on an adventure!

This is Lake Tahoe and Emerald Bay. There were a lot of boats out on the water. You can see a few in the picture.

And the colors were intense and beautiful. This is Fannette Island, the only island in Lake Tahoe.

At 1600 feet in depth, Lake Tahoe is the second deepest lake in North America.

We had the strangest things happen with our photos. There was a layer of smog hovering over the mountains and it made the sky look white, yellow and eery green sometimes before you saw the layer of blue. Ick! It will take some time in Photoshop to hopefully correct it. Most of my best shots have it. :o( Hubby's pictures had the same.

Emerald Bay is on the California side, so you are looking across to Nevada. The north shore of the lake is hideously over-developed. The Nevada site has had large tracts of land which were and some still are privately owned, so not much development has occurred. I wish that someone had thought to purchase this land for a national park 100+ years ago.

Another view of Emerald Bay. Look at the green color of the water towards the bottom.

I had hubby go take this picture (after I had driven past it) because I wanted to show Shelley, after our Yosemite bear experience! :o)

There is a rest area on the Nevada side that has a beautiful view of the lake and if you are brave, you can boulder hop down to the water. We didn't get quite to the water. There were a few places we could have gone on small hikes, however, the elevation (about 6300 feet) really affected my asthma, which has been bad all summer. So, we took it easy and just enjoyed.

This is from Nevada looking west toward the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. Only one peak looked like it had a small deposit of snow. The mountains are pretty bare this year.

Isn't the water incredible? There were so many colors of blue, teal, turquoise and green. It doesn't always show up in photographs.

Here's a picture of hubby and me at an overlook at Emerald Bay. I brought my small pocket camera with me so that we could get some pictures like this. It's less intimidating to strangers than handing over the digital SLR.

This is taken through the window at Harrah's Casino. No, we didn't go gambling, but wanted to try this buffet that several friends had recommended. We were famished since we had only had popcorn since breakfast, but it didn't open until 5PM. We had an hour to wait. First we waited outside a posh gourmet restaurant called Summit. It was voted in the top 10 best gourmet restaurants in America in 2oo3. We looked at the menu outside and there were no prices for the meals and a bowl of soup was $12! LOL Not in our price range but they did have cozy chaise couches so we rested there awhile until they began opening.

Then we waited on the benches by the elevators. What else would you do while you are waiting? I knit on my sock and hubby sketched in his small sketch book. Then we decided to go across the street to Harvey's Casino and try to see if something was open there since we were famished.

We ended up eating at Hard Rock Cafe. This is where hubby took me for dinner on our first trip before we were married. That's hubby sketching underneath John Mellancamp's photo and guitar. We decided to have the same meal we had then, french dip sandwiches.

And naturally there was more waiting, so we did what comes natural...we took pictures of each other (LOL) and sketched and knitted.

I thought it was quite appropriate to knit on my Socks That Rock socks at Hard Rock cafe! The color is a little washed out but it is the Azure Malachite colorway. This is the first time that I have knit with this yarn. At first I wasn't sure I was going to like it. It feels a little bit like cotton because it is so tightly spun, but I think it is growing on me. I have about 5" on it (from the toe up, thanks to the wonderful comments from Carissa on my last sock post) and will probably get to turn the heel tomorrow.

It was a relaxing day today with a family birthday party celebrating all the birthdays for the whole year since we never get to be together on our special days. Naturally pictures will be forthcoming...but for now, I need to get some sleep! :o)