Lake Tahoe - my all time favorite trip.

Just off  Rubicon Trail

If you are even slightly wondering if you would enjoy a trip to Lake Tahoe, let me help you decide. YES! GO!  It is my unexpected favorite place, and I can't wait to return.... or even better   - move there. I loved every single day of our trip and I'm going to try to list everything that is worth doing that we did.

 First off... we flew into Reno and spent our first evening down town. We stayed at the Silver Legacy, which had plenty to do and plenty to eat. A few blocks away was the Truckee River, which was pretty low and slow do to the lack of rainfall out there. However, it's still a neat stroll along the paths, there was live music at the park, with food vendors and people sitting on patios of various bars and grills. It is a very lively area.

The next morning after a super delicious buffet breakfast, we took the free hotel shuttle back to the airport to pick up our car at the car rental area. Easy. NOW the trip REALLY begins.

Hot August Nights - Virginia City

First destination : Virginia City, NV, an old mining town that grew from the Comstock lode. I really recommend making the short trip up there. And it is UP there! What a fun ride, though! It's maybe 30 or 40 minutes away from the airport and a big chunk of that time is winding up the mountain with super awesome views as you climb. Our trip was during Hot August Nights, which is one of the biggest car events in the U.S. That day classic cars filled the town.

Red Dog Saloon

The town is pretty small. Just basically a main strip of really old downtown and some outlying streets with homes. The shops are so neat, and you feel like John Wayne should step out of one of the saloons. Yes, it has really old ,still functioning saloons. We of course had to pop in one and have a drink.  I would love to stay there for a night the next time we make the trip out there. It really feels like you're in the old west. I would opt to stay here over Reno. The coolness factor is pretty high.


 After spending a couple of hours checking out Virginia City, it was finally time to head to Lake Tahoe. Our Destination was Tahoe Summit Village in Stateline, NV -our home for the next week. Here are my thoughts on that location. 

Sunrise from Tahoe Summit Village

Pros - Sitting at around 7-8000 ish?? Ft, we had pretty nice sunset and sunrise views. In the evening we'd stroll over to one side of the property to see the sunset over the lake ,and in the morning the sunrise to the east was gorgeous. ( Pictured to the left )

Beautiful Trail accessed a minute away

  There is a hot tub on the property, but we never used it, and nice gas grills that we did use one evening. I liked the fact that it was an easy ride down the east side of the mountain from the condo and we could be in Genoa, NV. I will post more on that gem of a town later. Also it was only about 10 minutes down the other side of the mountain to South Lake Tahoe and all the hustle and bustle. The last point I liked was the closeness to trail access. Just a 1 minute ride on down the street was a trailhead to the Tahoe Rim Trail. We did some hiking on that trail and we Really enjoyed it.

Cons- The only " con " I can come up with is the dated condo. That really didn't bother us too much. We aren't picky. We pretty much only use a place to eat and sleep. But the condo did look like it hadn't been updated in a decade or so. Everything was functional. I just mention this because there are some who can't tolerate dated furniture, etc. AND there is no AC which was pretty crazy to us southerners. We quickly learned that a night in August out there is just fine with a fan blowing. We were completely comfy with no AC.

  There's a quick, but not really quick (oops ) intro to our lake Tahoe adventure. More recommendations to come!