Dinner outside.
A cat. I wonder if he will catch any of the hummingbirds?
The lease said we're not supposed to store so much stuff in our garage that we can't fit our cars in it, but it seems plenty of neighbors do.
A basketball court.
And a swing set.
Some picnic tables.
Wildlife area.
A little path.
We ran into a gate with a lock we couldn't open.
There are hiking trails on the other side.
We can take this path along the fence.
And just walk around the fence to be on the other side of the gate, though.
Ogii by the open area behind our place.
Colorful sunset.
Don't have a desk set up, so the headboard of the bed by the stairs will work for now.
A hummingbird trying out the feeder.
Another dinner outside.
Another nice sunset.
We ran into a guy at Flora's Farm who collects stamps. Ogii mentioned she might have some Mongolian stamps, which he doesn't have, so she found some for him.
A lizard.
Ogii watching the hummingbirds.
Greg and Dagii gave us a gift certificate to Cibo, an Italian restaurant in Monterey.
Appetizers.
The main meal.
Dessert.
A bar if you don't want a full meal.
And some live music.
Light rays over the hills.
I rented a Sony A7riii to test out at Lake Tahoe for the weekend.
Gotta dodge some vegetables on the way there.
Neat cutouts and lights at this gas station.
The McDonalds is still closed at 5:30am. Guess we'll have to come back later.
Emerald Bay in Lake Tahoe, probably the most famous viewpoint.
With the Sony.
Especially because Eagle Falls is right here.
The falls and the sunrise.
A darker view.
Lower with the Sony. The cell phone picture looks more colorful because it does auto-correction.
Me getting pictures.
Another photographer.
And some more showed up right at sunrise.
Getting the right angle.
A shot of the falls where I included a twisting log just in front of me the Sony.
Multiple shots as the sun rises.
And it's up.
Me getting the sunrise.
A bridge behind us.
A little path of rocks you have to walk across.
A big tree that had fallen down.
It's giant roots.
A squirrel running around.
Another little waterfall.
Me getting a picture of a lone tree.
The picture.
I was surprised there weren't more cars here; I thought the lot would be packed.
Same thing at Inspiration Point nearby; the lot is almost empty.
Some nice info on the area.
We have to check out this place some time.
More info on the bay.
A little island.
Ogii looking at it.
The island with our cell phone camera.
And with the Sony. A bit more detail, but it would really make a difference if you print it out bigger.
Now time for breakfast as McDonald's is open. They have a multi-game system with my favorite: the find-the-difference game.
This midget wrestling was why we originally thought of coming up here in the first place this weekend; we had seen an ad for it in a newspaper when we were here during the Fourth of July. But we decided to not go because it didn't look that entertaining.
Gordon Ramsay's Hell's Kitchen is coming to Harvey's soon. It's going to take the place of the Sage House, which is taking the place of 19 Kitchen & Bar on the top floor. It seems more fitting to have Sage House stay in the same place and have Hell's Kitchen go to the top, but I guess they think they'll get more walk-by traffic at Hell's Kitchen.
Love locks.
A car show.
Long.
Beautiful fire paint job.
Going up the gondola.
The view.
Stopping half way up at the observation point. The floor is a little scary; it's a long ways down.
Us with the lake.
In the winter it's all ski runs; in the summer it's various activities.
On the mountain coaster.
Here we go.
A video.
The bunny slopes got turned into slides.
Ogii in California and Nevada at the same time.
The lodge.
A medium-sized ropes course.
The climbing wall.
Me looking down at Ogii.
About to start again.
Looking down again.
Us from the ground.
Time to go panning.
Shaking it up.
Some pretty rocks.
Some gold.
Ogii picking through her new treasures.
The big ropes course.
Ready to go.
Ogii practicing attaching and unattaching the carbiner. They're designed so you have to always be attached to at least one line.
Me on a lower course.
Looking across it.
Reaching.
Now up to a higher one.
It definitely looks higher from up here.
Crossing some logs.
And some hanging stumps. These were really difficult.
Swinging pieces.
Everyone meets in the middle.
And rappels down.
A mini ropes course for tiny kids.
One of the ski slopes.
Headed up it on the ski lift.
To get to the top of the mountain.
Beautiful view.
Ogii getting strapped in.
You had to weight more than a certain amount to do it. If you were a few pounds to light, they'd have you hold this rock to make weight.
Another couple ready to go.
Going down.
There's Ogii over my shoulder.
A band.
Some cornhole.
Huge bunch of hanging flowers.
Headed back down on the gondola.
A Pony Express marker from 1860.
This elevator doesn't have floors 13 or 14.
Our room at Montbleu.
Bathroom.
Some beautiful sunset photos.
At Harvey's.
It's not a big deal in the summer, but in the winter it's definitely helpful to know the road conditions.
Dinner at the Sage Room.
It's a beautiful room.
Very interesting lantern.
So many wines.
Statues.
And paintings of western scenes.
Our server cutting our meat at the table.
Looks good.
Us with our food.
Let's make sure we don't order the $375 drink.
Cherries jubilee.
Cooking the cherries.
Time to eat.
Some poker afterwards.
Gotta love big pairs.
Back at the hotel to sleep.
And then up early the next morning. A intricate elevator at Harvey's.
There wasn't much nearby for breakfast, so we tried Cinnabon. Good, but way, way too sweet.
Ready for their morning tournament.
The last rebuy is during level two, and you have to get knocked out to rebuy. I was very short and needed to get knocked out in the next 29 seconds to rebuy. Thankfully I made it.
If you play cash for a few hours after the tournament, they give you this little slip of paper which gives you extra chips during a later tournament. We both had two of these. We used them both during our initial buy-in, and then used them again for our rebuys. The dealer had to call the floor manager to ask if we could use them for our rebuys, though, becase that had never happened before; we were the first people to ever do it.
Down to two tables.
Ogii made the final table but got knocked out with AK vs JJ. Good playing!
The off to Himmel Haus for lunch.
The dining room and bar.
Lots of German food.
And some really good German beers.
Including my favorite, Berliner Weisse.
You can open the door either way, so it's "pullsh."
A game area.
Our server dressed up.
Ogii with our food.
Nice lamp.
A quick check on the pool at our hotel.
And then onto a hike to Bonsai Rock for sunset.
Down to the lake.
Over some small logs.
And some big rocks.
The sun is almost down, but this isn't where we want to be.
We want to be way over there.
Unfortunately we couldn't find the trail down to the location we wanted.
And the sun went down. Although there weren't any clouds, so it wasn't that great of a sunset.
Ogii coming back up.
The hotels.
Ogii with a sliver moon and some flowers.
Lucky Beaver.
Watching the burgers get cooked.
We went next door to the Aleworx.
For pizza.
They have ski shots.
Dueling piano players at Harveys.
Finishing off the pizza in the room.
Up early the next morning to hike Cave Rock.
A house way up on the hill.
Our destination is the top of that.
Me lining up a shot.
Of this tree.
A different angle without the road.
A panoramic view.
Me getting a shot to the north.
Ogii at the top.
And another view.
Near the edge.
My view looking down.
Climbing back down.
And down some more.
This house is all windows.
A quick breakfast at McDonald's again.
Wait a second; Ogii is using the knife upside down. Someone apparently didn't get enough sleep last night.
A ton of traffic on the way home.
That's not very fast.
I can't wait until we get there.
All open.
Now more traffic.
And we're all backed up again. Google Navigation said to take this other road.
Of course, it told everyone else to do the same. And it's some tiny little road, not a highway.
And now we're not even moving at all.
What in the world is a firetruck doing here?
And an ambulance.
Some people gave up and turned around.
Almost to the highway again.
Well this was dumb; we now have to merge back onto the highway. I thought it would be an entire different route. Also, we have a stop sign, the cross traffic never stops, it's a busy weekend, and we all have to get across this lane of traffic into the other one; no cars were getting across at all.
Finally a cop stopped traffic so we could go. What a horrible "shortcut" by Google Navigation. Next time I'm looking ahead, and if it just merges back into the highway, I'm staying on the highway instead.
Still lots of traffic, but at least we're moving.
I still had the Sony for a few more days, so I took it over to get some sunset picture of the Point Pinos Lighthouse in Pacific Grove.
There are often lots of deer around, but they were mostly in the park across the road, not near the lighthouse. I was pretty much done getting pictures of the lighthouse and was parked by the ocean. I saw a couple trying to set their phone on a fence to get a picture of themselves, but it kept falling down, so I went over to them and offered to take a picture. They were very thankful and we chatted for a few minutes. After that I headed home and went by the lighthouse one last time. It was very dark, but I just barely saw a deer walking right between me and the lighthouse, so I parked the car and got a few shots of it out of the window. After about 30 seconds it walked away. It was extremely dark, so I wasn't sure how the pictures would come out, but with a little Photoshop editing, some of them actually came out looking quite good, if a bit grainy. Talk about good karma; if I wouldn't have taken the picture of the couple, I wouldn't have driven by this spot when the deer was here and wouldn't have gotten this picture.