Lake Tahoe

After Donner Pass, I had to go see Lake Tahoe. It was as pretty as everyone says, but it's totally surrounded by rich people and there's virtually no access to it and not much hiking to be done there.

Still, there was beauty to be seen, such as this dam at Tahoe City where water is released into the Truckee river.

And there was a small step hiking trail to the top of Eagle Rock, which was worth the effort as it was a good test of my brand new leg.

Yep. Made it up. New leg rocked!

I drove around the rest of the lake and saw what there was to be seen. Some scenery, like this spot where a massive rockfall had come down some years ago and cut the highway for months.

Lots of nice views, especially on the south end.

Scenic to be sure, but crowded and mostly all owned by other people, so I wasn't too sad to bid it farewell.

Next morning, I met up with Mike, a blog fan from Texas who just happened to be in Reno for the day himself. We did some pawn shop gun shopping and saw some neat stuff, but alas, it was all trashed and overpriced and they wouldn't meet my offers even though I offered more than I should have for a couple. (Low-number 1903 Springfield, sporterized stock and WW2 rebarrel. They wanted a grand. I offered $500. The manager would only come down to $650. Also a Winchester 1895 in .30-40, an early one. COLD-BLUED and messed-up front sight. The guy still wanted $3,000 and didn't seem to think $600 was even worth asking the manager about.) So we hit a casino for coffee, and then I had to do the urgent care thing for medicine before I could head up into the mountains to start mine-hunting.