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INTERVAL WORLD Summer 2016 IntervalWorld.com
was right there
, a crab about the
size of a silver dollar, and it looked
close enough to touch. I leaned my
face over the edge of the boat dock at
Lollie and Poppy’s house, the name I
used for my paternal grandparents,
and my knees and hands scraped the
wooden planks.
“Get closer,” said Poppy, standing
barefoot behind me. “You can reach it.”
He nudged me with his foot, and before I knew it I was splashing
in 20 feet of frigid — and impossibly clear, I had just learned — Lake
Tahoe water. The crab that had appeared right at my fingertips from
the dock was not even anywhere near my toes extending a few feet
underwater, and there was no way I was diving down to get it. As I
swam to the rocky beach, I could hear Poppy’s cackling laugh.
He got me.
I never went to camp; never pulled a prank on the boys’ cabin;
never took a moonlight canoe trip to capture the flag. But what I did
have was Poppy (for pranks) and The Lake, as my family called it,
where visits to my grandparents’ house in Carnelian Bay meant
drinking straight from deep blue waters, cannonballing (and falling)
off the dock, skipping rocks, going on boat rides, and the bats that
Poppy swore flew overhead at night when I asked to sleep outside
on the deck.
My grandparents sold that house in the early ’80s, and have both
since passed away. Over the years, I have often thought back to
those warm, carefree days, but hadn’t returned except when there
was snow on the peaks and skis on my feet. So on the occasion of
my 20th wedding anniversary last fall, we chose to celebrate with a
trip to Lake Tahoe, where I rediscovered all the outdoor wonder of
my childhood, and incorporated loads of grown-up fun that has me
convinced, now more than ever, that Lake Tahoe is timeless.
THE LAKE OF THE SKY
Just 200 miles northeast of San Francisco, and about 45 minutes
from Reno-Tahoe International Airport, Lake Tahoe hits you like an
oasis would a thirsty traveler, when its glassy expanse of cobalt blue
comes into view for the first time. As Mark Twain remarked on his
initial glance in his semiautobiographical
Roughing It
, published in
1872, “…as it lay there with the shadows of the mountains brilliantly
photographed upon its still surface I thought it must surely be the
fairest picture the whole Earth affords.”
At 22 miles long and 12 miles wide, Lake Tahoe is the largest
alpine lake in North America, and sits astride the California-Nevada
border at an altitude of more than 6,200 feet. Some think it’s the
lofty elevation that precipitated its “The Lake of the Sky” nickname,
but for many, including my family and me, the name was always
about the blue.
Lollie and Poppy, circa 1981, at their Lake Tahoe cabin.
Kimberley Lovato; Nina Photography
SOME THINK IT’S
THE LOFTY
ELEVATION THAT PRECIPITATED ITS
‘THE LAKE OF THE SKY’ NICKNAME,
BUT FOR MANY, INCLUDING MY FAMILY
AND ME, THE NAME WAS ALWAYS
ABOUT THE BLUE.”