We made a quick run up the hill to Tahoe last weekend, mostly because we didn’t have anything better to do.  Haven’t been there in a few months either, and it’s always good for a fun weekend.  Granted, we may have wanted to check the weather before we took off Friday afternoon;  It dropped a full 25 degrees over the 1.5 hour drive.  We arrived at the resort in our shorts and flip-flops, and were greeted by a rather crisp 40 degree temp when we got out of the car.  Oh well, we weren’t alone, there were plenty of people in the same boat.  By the time we got checked into our room and changed into more climate-suitable clothes, it was getting towards dinner time, so we headed up to the State Line area and found a table at The Lucky Beaver for some burgers.  A rather cheesy place to be sure, but man do they sling a mean burger.  I had a delicious blue cheese burger, it was over the top.  Doni went with a gut-bomb chili burger.  Both were crazy-good, but definitely night-enders;  We rolled back to the room and turned in for the day.

Saturday was a long day, in a good way.  We headed over to our standard breakfast spot, the Red Hut Cafe, but they gave us a 50 minute wait time.  That would have put us pretty close to lunch time, so we regrouped and drove over to the North side of the lake to check things out.  Indeed, by the time we changed clothes and got to the other side of the lake it was time for lunch, so we stopped in at The Beacon.  We shared a turkey club, which was a good call as it was an enormous sandwich.  After that we drove a bit further, and with no small amount of trouble found a parking spot around the Emerald Bay area.  We have wanted to hike down to the beach where the Vikingsholm house is located for a long time, and declared Saturday “the day.”  Due to our inconvenient parking spot, we actually worked in a few short, scenic hikes on the way to the Vikingsholm trail head, maybe we should have just called it a day at that point.  Nah, we decided to head on down.  It was a short walk, a little over a mile I think, and well worth it.  There were several short hikes to waterfalls and other scenic locations at the bottom too, so we took a few of those.  The only downside was, the actual house was closed to tours for the season.  Whoops, guess we should have read all those signs at the trail head a little closer.  It was still worth it, very cool.  A little tip though;  A one-mile hike down a hill is much easier than a one-mile hike back up the same hill.  Whew.  We had spent several hours there, and by the time we got back to the South side it was getting towards dinner time.  So, it was back to the State Line area, where the first order of business was to cash in Doni’s winning tickets for the Royal’s ALCS and World Series victories, woot!!!  We scurried over to a table with our cash and pondered our options:  Retire early?  Put it towards Teagan’s college tuition?  Buy a vacation home?  After much debate, we decided to just blow it all on a nice dinner.  Even that was a hard decision, but we finally agreed on Riva Grill back by our hotel.  A fine choice to be sure.  I labeled it “the best meal I’ve had out in CA,” and I’m standing by that declaration.  I opted for the 10 oz. filet mignon, and swapped out my mashed ‘taters for crab risotto.  Doni went with a massive slab of prime rib, which was the special of the evening.  Both were absolutely fantastic.  As an added bonus, we somehow scored a sweet table right by the huge fireplace, in front of the TV that was playing the Nebraska game.  A good day, all in all.

Sunday we got up early-ish and scurried back down to El Dorado Hills.  Not much news to go on for that day.  According to my step-counter watch, I racked up a record-low 1089 steps for the day.  Apparently that is how many steps it takes to get from the hotel room to the car, and the car to the couch.