Truckee Summer Part 1

We made a handful of trips up to Truckee over the summer, starting with a fairly chilly Memorial Day weekend.  May and June are unpredictable, weather-wise - another weekend, we arrived on a hot & sunny Friday and woke to a cold and windy Saturday.

But by July, it's pretty reliably summer.  I decided we should try celebrating July 4th up there this summer - normally, we're either shivering on our back steps watching the fog change color from the fireworks, or in Michigan.  Brennan and Lucie flew back from their Michigan visit and brought Gangi and Grandpa Marshall along, and Daddy & I drove up from San Francisco.

We went to the Independence Day parade.  There was some candy, and lots of horses.

Later, some of us went to the top of the hill and watched the fireworks explode over Donner Lake, but if we ever want to do that again, we should probably make friends with someone who owns a house up there, rather than scramble around a vacant lot jockeying for viewing space with the bunch of other Tahoe Donner people who didn't feel like driving into town.

We made sure to enjoy some of our favorites - like dinner and ice cream sundaes at the Lodge -

- and Truckee Thursday, where we FINALLY managed to be there on a night the old jailhouse museum was actually open.  (They list their hours with the words "around" and "generally", so you do the math.)

We took Gangi on a favorite hike, from the Glacier Way Trailhead to the first little segment of the Donner Lake Rim Trail.

There also was a Stuff Your Cheeks with Watermelon Contest -

A lesson at the Equestrian Center for Lucie -

and biking along the Truckee River.

We visit the Trout Creek Pool (aka, "the big pool") almost every day.  Although sometimes it turns out - after packing up towels, changing into swimsuits, finding goggles, wiggling through sunscreen application, and swimming for maybe 20 minutes - to have just been a very roundabout way of asking to get ice cream, helpfully sold both poolside and the front desk.

Some Saturday evenings, they put up a floating obstacle course - we only managed to make it one time,  and the line was pretty long, but afterward both kids said it was fun and they want to do it again next summer. 

There's no way I can get the kids to bike up our street during the day - I've done it a few times, and can vouch for how miserable it is - but it's better around dinner time.  Sure, there's still some complaining on the way up - but flying back down makes it all worth it!